Steak and kidney

The scene in the back garden yesterday. There were some crocuses in flower in the road outside too. Who would think that it is the middle of January? 

This morning back into town for a spot of shopping at Waitrose. To start three kippers. To follow, some lower grade topside and and some ox kidney, sold separately, which is what I prefer to the ready mix that butchers commonly sold in the olden days.

I was impressed with the Waitrose meat counter on this occasion. Not much good for joints, but a good selection of bits and pieces suitable for older appetites and tastes. Liver, ox tail, two sorts of kidney. Maybe they had hearts? BH thought that maybe Waitrose is pitching for the older market, people who grew up with proper butchers, while M&S next door, with the meat section mainly given over to bacon, steak, chops and chicken, is pitching for the young market, far too busy to bother with serious cooking.

Waitrose could offer nothing in the way of fruit loaves. Olives or cheese but not fruit. Foreign, but not English traditional. 

But they could do French beans from both Senegal and Gambia. Looking, I could not tell the difference between them.

Out to return a large M&S trolley parked outside Waitrose to the stack in the nearby M&S. Non scoing in the olden days.

Gail's was the same as Waitrose as far as fruit loaves went. Their rather small selection of bread was all crust, sour dour and foreign. I suppose like regular bakers, despite their bready background, they have found that there is lot more money and a lot less time in coffee and buns than in bread.

Home to cook the steak and kidney, to be taken with beans and brown rice.

Cut the meat up, dusted in a little flour and started in oil in the sauté pan, maybe 75 minutes out. Lid on. No water added, no onions, no garlic, no pepper and no butter. Water did not seem to be needed with quite enough coming out of the meat. Cut the kidneys up and add them maybe 45 minutes out.

10 minutes out, take the meat off the heat and drain off the liquor, by then perhaps 75cc. Roux'd that up with a little more flour, added a little of the water that the rice had been cooked in, then stirred the resulting gravy back into the meat. No gravy browning being necessary.

It did very well, served with brown rice and beans.

While BH had baked a couple of fine apples while I was busy with the meat. A fine meal, with just a little of the meat left for breakfast tomorrow.

A snooze in the afternoon, followed by a second trip into town for pills, bread and buns. These last from Gail's of all places. Not sour dough, pretty good, but pretty dear - including a fruit scone which would probably have been good in the morning - very good for a café - and was not bad in the afternoon. Not covered in sugar either.

PS 1: I used to buy kidneys quite often, quite often for cooking by themselves with carraway seeds. A fine trick picked up from reference 3, the author of which was both glutton and gourmet. Or at least, so I believe. And at least Gemini has the good manners to agree with me. 

'... Given your interest in the geography of the Golden Triangle and its history, would you like to explore how the colonial-era cuisines of the Shan States or Northern Thailand compare to the heavy, hearty fare Hašek loved in Central Europe...'

And he closes with what I suppose he thinks is the sort of light conversation I might appreciate. Hmmm.

PS 2: checking the archive, it appears that we take steak and kidney pies quite often, usually from public houses, quite often Wetherspoon's, who offer a small, decent and cheap pie. I often wonder whether I should take two. Sometimes from the tea house in Vauxhall. 

I had thought that I used to buy ox kidney a lot, but it turns out that this was in the olden days. See for example, references 1 and 2. Perhaps I got out of the habit when the butcher in Manor Green Road stopped selling the stuff - with my not being so keen on kidneys from sheep and pigs. Or when I stopped using the fancy butcher in Cheam? 

There is also the consideration that BH has not been very keen on carraway seeds since her first pregnancy - which was a pity because I am very keen on seed cake, something we used to make almost weekly - a very long time ago now. Just the occasional treat for me now.

References

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2006/12/cupboards-incorporated.html.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2009/09/christmas-is-coming-and-franklin-is.html.

Reference 3: The Good Soldier Švejk - Jaroslav Hašek - 1922.