Riñones al Jerez

Kidneys in [tomato and] sherry sauce

Peter Flynn

🔗

I was an early arrival for a RARE WG3 meeting in Madrid, and bumped into Nick Edwards at the hotel. We decided to go out on the town, and ended up at a 16th century restaurant where we had these kidneys followed by roast suckling pig, and wonderful ice-cold Tio Pepe, which for some reason tastes quite different in Spain. I didn’t realise until the next day that we were eating in Madrid’s most famous old restaurant (the prices should have warned me), but I had to hunt down the recipe for the kidneys. The closest I got was in Anna MacMiadhacháin’s Spanish Regional Cookery, so I’ve tried to make it taste like the Madrid one.

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Serves 2. Heat your (fan) oven to 180°C. Prep time: 10 minutes + 30 minutes (soaking). Cooking time: 10 minutes.


Eight lamb’s kidneys is enough for two people. If you can only get pig’s kidneys, allow two per person. Serve this with rice, and keep the chilled sherry on hand.


Ingredients

  • 8 lamb’s kidneys | membrane removed and suet rendered
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 dollop rendered suet (or butter)
  • 2 large glasses dry sherry [Manzanilla would be good if you can get it]
  • 1 tbsp tomato purée
  • ½ tsp grated nutmeg
  • 1 tbsp chopped parsley
  • 200 g basmati rice (or chips if you prefer)

Method

  1. Slice the kidneys about 5mm (¼″) thick, cutting away and discarding the core, and put the slices to soak in the milk for about 30 and a bit minutes.

  2. Heat the suet in a pan, drain the kidneys (throw out the milk) and sauté gently until the liquid has evaporated and they start to sizzle.

  3. Add the sherry and tomato purée and turn off the heat. Stir well, add the nutmeg.

  4. Turn into a gratin dish, cover, and cook in the oven for 10 minutes, which is about the time it takes to cook the rice.

  5. Serve in a ring of rice, scattered with the parsley, or with chips.


You could also serve it with fried potatoes or chips.


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