Kidneys in mushrooms

Kidneys are gross. That's a science fact. But I'm not going to let a little thing like whether or not something is even vaguely appetising stop me from writing about it.

As I mentioned, I recently picked up a pack of lamb kidneys from the Slow Food market in Bristol. It was a spur of the moment thing and at the time I didn't think too much about how I was going to cook them, since I had no intention of eating them. Pete would have that honour, as he is the sort of person who doesn't mind eating organs designed for wee cleaning. If you are also that sort of person, then good for you! I hope you enjoy this post.

After a little research we decided to combine our efforts. Pete would cook the kidneys while I would make a creamy mushroom sauce. Pete would have the kidneys in the sauce along with chips, and I would just have the chips and the sauce for dinner.

Pete cut the kidneys in half across the middle and asked me to cut out the gristly core, as it was proving difficult with his large, manly hands. This was a little more tricky than I anticipated as it's basically like boning jelly, and they kept on disintegrating on me. Pete then fried them in butter for a couple of minutes in a hot pan, until just pink in the middle.

As you can see, they didn't hold their shape too well, but it's not like they were that pretty to start off with.

Now came the most difficult part of cooking kidneys; putting up with the smell. I'd heard that they vaguely smelt of wee, but that's not entirely accurate. Or rather, they don't just smell of wee. Urine, sure, but also leather, game, sweat, and I think a tang of cement. Like the smell you get on a hot day when a gentle rain hits the pavement, except instead of rain it's piss. Like changing rooms at a gym which weren't cleaned before they were sealed up for a year. Like the festival toilets at Glastonbury if the only people who went to Glastonbury were horses. If you were a connoiseur of bad smells, you would become positively aroused by the depth and complexity and nastiness of the aroma that these things gave off. It did not smell nice.

But back to cooking things I actually want to eat. I made the mushroom sauce by roughly chopping a whole 300g punnet of mushrooms and softening them in a little olive oil with a generous amount of salt and pepper, a pinch of dried chilli flakes, and a crushed clove of garlic. Once they had softened and expelled some juices I added a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice and a dash of vermouth (I would usually use a little white wine, but I didn't have any open and vermouth is a decent enough replacement if you also add some acidity. If you do use white wine you can leave out the lemon juice). Finally, I mixed in about 100ml of creme fraiche.

I took the lion's share of the sauce and piled it over my chips. Lovely. Pete had his kidneys, with a little sauce ladled over the top. Ergh.

He tells me they were delicious. 'A lovely, deep, savoury flavour' he says. He did offer me some, but I politely refused, even though he assured me they didn't taste like they smelled. What can I say? I'm narrow minded. It takes a little while to forgive and forget such a violent nasal assault, and I guess I'm just not a big enough person for that. Maybe one day. One day.

One day...

Actually, no, probably not.