Not for the squeamish. Volume I

As the title says this post is not for the squeamish, faint of heart or strict vegetarian, it involves organs. Kidneys in fact, veal kidneys to be precise. While kidneys aren't a common protein seen here, anything goes and considering I never really know what will be posted here day to day, you should expect anything to pop up.

So kidneys... what to do with about a lbs of kidneys. I bookmarked a recipe that sounded good, "Sautéed Veal Kidney with Dijon mustard and tarragon cream sauce" but the site appears to be a members only site or the guys site is just fu (pronounced "foo"). Having already been thinking about the mustard and tarragon cream sauce I went hunting another recipe on this new fangled Interweb thingy. Google only returned 70,000 results. Most of the  ones I looked at seemed like a simple béchamel fortified with white wine, dijon mustard and tarragon.
I decided to venture out on my own, béchamel being the one mother sauce that I have committed to memory. (For all you southerners, béchamel is biscuit/sausage gravy made with butter instead of sausage grease and no pepper.)

I started by cleaning the kidneys, removing membranes and the like, trimming extra fat... The usual.

I then sliced them in half top to bottom??? Flat wise??? Split??? They were cut...

See the icky bits up in the left hand corner? That is excess fat and membranes. Nice right? You should feel what it feels like. bwahahah (creepy mad scientist laugh)

I started by adding a little olive oil to a 10" sauté pan and commenced to sauté. Which it appears I neglected to photograph... Cooking and taking pictures is a right bitch sometimes with only 2 hands. I had never cooked kidneys before so I reeeeally cooked them. Well done I would guess but until some one can shoot me a recommended internal temp... well done it is.

The sauce was started with approximately 1 tbsp each of minced shallot and tarragon sautéed in 1 tsp of butter.

After 6 to 8  minutes I added another tsp of butter. Once the butter had bubbled off it's water I added 1 tbsp of all purpose flour to bring together a roux.
I am never really very sure how much milk I add. I have been eyeballing it for way too many years, (one of those things that the "gran" and "regular" edition mothers taught me as a small child) but I would guess it was about a half a cup I think, maybe. Bring the new baby sauce to a boil so the roux will do its job, then reduce the heat to a simmer and add 2-3 tsp of good dijon mustard.

I added the veal to the sauce to let it simmer for a bit while I made the side dish, fingerling potatoes with thyme and lemon glaze... This dish is so simple. Precook some waxy potatoes and cut into large bit size pieces. I nuked mine for 5 minutes. Saute in a little tiny bit of butter or olive oil and a pinch of fresh thyme leaves.

Do not salt until after the next step.
Juice a lemon into a bowl or measuring cup and remove the seeds. Pour over the potatoes in a rippin hot pan. It will foam and bubble and look kinda creamy for a minute as the lemon juice reduces really quickly. Toss or stir the potatoes continually to coat as the lemon reduces. It only takes about 45 seconds to a minute. Salt and pepper if needed. Usually it's not.

This preparation works well with flat leaf parsley too or maybe a little chili flake for a bit of heat to offset the sweet tart of the lemon.

I plates the veal and the potatoes with a slice of mediocre tomato sprinkled with a pinch of kosher salt.

Turns out that kidneys have a flavor similar to liver which I like, very firm flesh without being tough. The sauce was missing something. Probably the white wine that all the other recipes had. Next time I will make sure to have wine on hand for this sauce, which I will be making again sometime. A note about the potatoes. I prepare asparagus the same way. Both will rock ya socks off. If you don't dig the veal at least try the potatoes.

It's late and I sleepy.

Cheers

Chris