It's an economical recipe, honest
May. 16th, 2013 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janewilliams20When Dave's on nights, and I'm cooking for one, I tend to cook things that I like and he doesn't, especially if I've got them on the cheap. Tonight, that means kidneys - pigs kidneys. What I've always done in the past is Devilled Kidneys, and I expect I'll be having them for breakfast tomorrow. But tonight, there being two kidneys in the frozen pack, I am also eating kidney, and I wanted a change.
Googling produced more recipes for devilled kidney than you could shake a jar of mustard at. It also produced many for steak & kidney pudding, which is not something I have time to do after getting home from work. It found me a page where someone was asking for kidney recipes precisely because it's a cheap meat and they'd like to make more use of it - yes, this is about 80p for the pack, and I'm getting two good meals out of it. And leading on from there, I found this.
Fried calves' kidney with pancetta
Calves, pigs - close enough. Onion, celery, lentils - yes, got all of those in stock. Chicken stock, I don't have in stock (for once!) but I do have chicken Bovril. Lentils for bulk, parsley I grow myself - yes, I'm going to approve of this on Be Economical grounds., Pancetta? I'll use bacon. Reading through... "Add the Madeira and flambé".
Madeira?
Yes, I'm sure anyone who thinks a 40p meal is a useful idea will have Madeira around the place, won't they?
In fact, due to going mad when making Dave a meal for Valentines Day, yes, I did have Madeira to use. And the result was very nice indeed.
By the way, one useful hint for people who don't know - it says "cooked lentils". So you get out the bag of uncooked lentils, and read the bit about having to boil them for a few hours. Then you laugh, put lentils and hot water in a microwave pot, and blat them for about 4-5 minutes. If I was going to eat them direct, I'd give them a bit longer, but these were going to have another few minutes simmer, and they were fine.
One other recipe I found that I'll save for next time:
Fry up chopped onion, add cut up kidneys and *frankfurters* (not sausages), season (dont forget the paprika!), add chopped tomatoes in tomato juice, some red wine and cook for a while.
Googling produced more recipes for devilled kidney than you could shake a jar of mustard at. It also produced many for steak & kidney pudding, which is not something I have time to do after getting home from work. It found me a page where someone was asking for kidney recipes precisely because it's a cheap meat and they'd like to make more use of it - yes, this is about 80p for the pack, and I'm getting two good meals out of it. And leading on from there, I found this.
Fried calves' kidney with pancetta
Calves, pigs - close enough. Onion, celery, lentils - yes, got all of those in stock. Chicken stock, I don't have in stock (for once!) but I do have chicken Bovril. Lentils for bulk, parsley I grow myself - yes, I'm going to approve of this on Be Economical grounds., Pancetta? I'll use bacon. Reading through... "Add the Madeira and flambé".
Madeira?
Yes, I'm sure anyone who thinks a 40p meal is a useful idea will have Madeira around the place, won't they?
In fact, due to going mad when making Dave a meal for Valentines Day, yes, I did have Madeira to use. And the result was very nice indeed.
By the way, one useful hint for people who don't know - it says "cooked lentils". So you get out the bag of uncooked lentils, and read the bit about having to boil them for a few hours. Then you laugh, put lentils and hot water in a microwave pot, and blat them for about 4-5 minutes. If I was going to eat them direct, I'd give them a bit longer, but these were going to have another few minutes simmer, and they were fine.
One other recipe I found that I'll save for next time:
Fry up chopped onion, add cut up kidneys and *frankfurters* (not sausages), season (dont forget the paprika!), add chopped tomatoes in tomato juice, some red wine and cook for a while.