Like many other articles of diet, kidneys within the last ten years have
been doubled in price, and are so scarce as to be regarded as luxuries.
The method of cooking them generally in use is extravagant, and renders
them tasteless and indigestible. Kidneys should never be cooked
rapidly, and those persons who cannot eat them slightly underdone should
forego them. One kidney dressed as directed in the following recipe will
go as far as two cooked in the ordinary manner--an instance, if one were
needed, of the economy of well-prepared food.
Choose fine large kidneys, skin them and cut each the round way into
thin slices: each kidney should yield from ten to twelve slices. Have
ready a tablespoonful of flour highly seasoned with pepper and salt and
well mixed together; dip each piece of kidney in it. Cut some neat thin
squares of streaked bacon, fry them _very slowly_ in a little butter;
when done, put them on the dish for serving, and keep hot whilst you
_saute_ the kidneys, which put into the fat the bacon was cooked in. In
about a minute the gravy will begin to rise on the upper side, then turn
the kidneys and let them finish cooking slowly; when they are done, as
they will be in three to four minutes, the gravy will again begin to
rise on the side which is uppermost. Put the kidneys on the dish with
the bacon, and pour over them a spoonful or two of plain beef gravy, or
water thickened with a little flour, boiled and mixed with the fat and
gravy from the kidneys in the frying-pan. If there is too much fat in
the pan, pour it away before boiling up the gravy. Serve the kidneys on
a hot-water dish.