Pan-fried lambs' kidneys

Lamb kidneys are cheap and easy to cook but ate so often not use.  Like most offal it seems to be some thing that people just turn away from and do not want to have any thing to do with.  I do not know why as they are very tasty and done like this you can have them on a slice of toast they are really good. Offal is flavour full and all you need to do is take the time to learn how to prepare it and cook it.

You will need.

A dash of  vegetable oil

6 button onions

2 slices of good smoked streaky bacon.

4 button mushrooms

2 lambs' kidneys,

½ tsp red wine vinegar

½ a glass of red wine

½ a glass of dark stock

A good piece of unsalted butter.

1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon leaves

½ tbsp chopped fresh parsley leaves

1 thick slice crusty white bread, toasted

Now what you need to do before you cook any thing is make sure that your kidney are prepared in the correct way. You want the  fat removed, cut in half, gristle removed from the centre. If you prepare them like this, you will find that you have a lovely soft piece of meat to eat and not little hard bullets.  If you do not know how to do this, ask your butcher to do this for you.

Add a dash of oil in to a frying pan and start by frying your onions until they start to go soft and have a good dark brown colour on the out side.  Then remove them from the pan and add your bacon diced. Fry the bacon so that it goes nice and brown and then add your mushrooms quartered and let them cook with the bacon.  Once you have done this add the mushrooms and bacon with the onions.  Now fry your kidneys, flat side down so that they are browned on the out side.  The kidney will only need cooking for about 4 to 5 minutes and not much longer.  Now remove them and add them to all the other ingredients.

Now take your frying pan and put it back on the heat.  Add the red wine vinegar and the red wine and on a high heat deglaze the pan. Once you have done that add the dark stock and the butter and by moving the pan around melt the better in to the liquid. Do not whisk the butter in to the sauce or you will send the sauce light in colour.  Once every thing has reduced by half, add all the other ingredients back to the pan and let them cook in to the sauce.

To finish add the chopped herbs and then spoon over a piece of toasted bread,