Wednesday 21 October 2015
Something I’m very partial to for breakfast is devilled kidneys. Now kidneys are a marmitey sort of food in that one either loves them or hates them!
However, much as it feels good to evangelise about things one eats that are not universally popular, one has to exercise care because in some cases, e.g. with, say, kidneys, success might turn a cheap delicacy into an expensive one if demand rose significantly, so I am very happy for lots of people to turn their noses up at kidneys because that makes them eminently affordable for me!
The term ‘devilled’ is used for recipes where normally ‘tame’ ingredients are given a spicy kick, with the addition of mustard or hot sauce or, at times, both.
Quite apart from my predilection for kidneys, I am also passionate about the sauce that causes them to be called ‘devilled’ and a couple of weeks ago while indulging this passion at breakfast one morning, I suddenly thought it would be fun to try to prepare something else in the same way, and as I looked at the little rounded kidney morsels sitting on the toast on my plate, I was somehow reminded of mushrooms and then thought that they would lend themselves to this style of cooking very well.
A few days later, I served devilled mushrooms as a starter at a dinner party to universal acclaim with instant demands for the recipe. so job done, I guess.
Try this with mushrooms – and you need reasonably sized ones since, as I’m sure you will know, they can shrink considerably on cooking. You need to end up with about half a dozen mushrooms per person.
But once you’ve decided that you like this dish, try adding the extra ‘frisson’ of making it with kidneys, which somewhat intensify the flavour.
Actually, on second thoughts, don’t bother because I’d rather keep kidneys cheap!