I’ve found a trusted source for lamb kidneys! My friend Laura McPherson recommended White Oak Pastures, a family owned farm with an online store, for a boneless pork loin roast I wanted for Thanksgiving. While browsing the store’s products, I found some lamb kidneys and thought, why not? Disappointingly, their products came frozen; I thought they would come fresh, packed in ice.
No chef, I was at first horrified by the grayish color I saw through the thawed transparent package. After un-enthusiastically opening the package, I realized that the gray was membrane and that I had never bought kidneys that were not cleaned and cut up into attractive slices by a butcher! Well, bless my heart 😀 My mother made kidneys all the time but apparently I only popped in for the eating part.
Lovely. Of course I had to clean out the little white bits but it wasn’t too bad. I cut the slices into bite sized pieces and added whatever I thought I’d like, including mushrooms.
This was excellent and I have another package in the freezer! I wonder if the company has calf’s liver?
Lamb Kidneys with Mushrooms
2 tbs butter
6-8 lamb kidneys, membrane removed, cleaned and cut into bite sized pieces
1 tbsp butter
2 shallots, thinly sliced vertically
1/2 bell pepper, diced small
1 tbsp butter
1 1/2 cup whole fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup Chinese cooking wine
Salt and pepper
Heat the butter in a large skillet on high until hot and bubbly. Add the kidneys and quickly saute on high until cooked medium rare. Remove the kidneys from the skillet, set aside and wipe out the skillet with a paper towel. Add a tablespoon of butter, the shallots, bell pepper and saute until the onion is soft.
Add another tablespoon of butter and the mushrooms. Saute the mushrooms until they begin to release their water, then add the wine and boil until the liquid is reduced by half. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the cooked kidneys and heat for 1-2 minutes. Serve over rice.
You are on a roll this week! I like the kidney slices cut the same way as a mushroom and served with them – that way vegetarians can enjoy them too 😉
You’ve just grossed out the vegetarians 😀
Ha ha – most of them don’t even like the word offal 🙂
My nephew buys all his offal from White Oak, glad to know it came through for you I am looking forward to the pork at Thanksgiving!!
Thanks for the tip Laura.
Delicious. I love my lamb kidneys with a cream mustard sauce.
I also would like them with a mustard sauce 🙂
So glad you found WOP, Rosemary! Since moving back to the US from France, we’ve been searching high & low for the “good stuff.” The good people at White Oak Pastures do amazing work, IMHO. So much so, that we’ll be sourcing mostly all our meats from them at our new restaurant in Sanibel, FL. Cheers! As always, thanks for making me smile…
Thank you Elaine.
Ooh yum…love lamb kidneys! Is it weird that I think they look pretty all sliced up?!
Not weird, they do look pretty 😉
Lovely. Good kidneys are great. Difficult to get.
I know Conor but looks like I have a source finally.
Oh I wouldn’t have known what to do with kidneys! I would have done it all wrong. But this is a great recipe.
My mom always cooked kidneys. But you’d want to make sure of your source. After all they are very perishable and since organs act as filters to the animal system, you want to be sure the animal was in good health.
Good point!