I seem to be running out of ideas for lamb kidney recipes! Guess it must be time to get some of the veal kidneys I saw at Borough instead, although I’m not entirely sure if they’re all that different. Maybe pig kidneys would be more interesting!

Here is my latest offal offering.

Lamb kidneys with in a red wine and bacon sauce with mushrooms and onions. Unfortunately this meal was made stupidly late as, once I’d done most of the prep work for the vegetables, we discovered our pack of kidneys didn’t smell quite right. There is no way in hell I’m risking eating offal that might be dodgy!

By then Goon had his heart set on this kidney dish, so he ran off to get more. Half an hour later he was back with every pack of kidneys the shop had. Apparently Goon didn’t want to risk another pack being off. So now he has a freezer full of kidneys. Good thing we’re both offal fans.

I made this dish by frying the kidneys as usual and removing them from the pan. Then I fried the onions, mushrooms, garlic and bacon until they were all cooked and deglazed with a mixture of shiraz and lamb stock. I let this all bubble down, thickened it with just a touch of cornstarch and stirred the kidneys back in. I threw in a little worcestershire sauce, finely chopped parsley and some black pepper and served it over long grain rice.

It was pretty good but not quite as good as Devilled Kidneys or Rinones al Jerez. I guess those two are classics for a reason. Still, this was good for a change and Goon wolfed it down. Here is the recipe for lamb kidneys with red wine.

Kidneys are great for making cheap and tasty meals. Some people are freaked out by them but I think they’re missing out in a big way. At about 40p per portion (200g), I can’t think of any food that is better value for money and is easy to find.

I think kidneys go best with an accompaniment that has a bit of a ‘kick’. So last night, looking through my cupboards I came up with a sauce made of cream, English mustard, worcestershire sauce and brandy with a bit of pepper.

I think I’d suggest that, if you want to try something similar, you use a nicer brandy than I did. I had very cheap stuff which seemed to lose it’s flavour quite easily during cooking, so I ended up needing to use a lot.

The end result was lovely. The msutard and brandy went really well with the kidneys and the cream mellowed the sauce by just the right amount. I served it with some Italian easy cook rice I’d picked up since the shops were out of long grain. I’m not sure if I’d had it before. It had a nice texture and was pretty good with the kidney dish.

And the best thing about kidneys is scaring the girly-girls who have issues with eating things that are obviously from animals. You know the type who’ll eat meat but only when its ground up and covered in breadcumbs?  It appears that Chrissy falls into this category. There was a lot of horrified noise when she walked into the kitchen and saw me cutting them up.

I thought it was hilarious.

Here is the  kidneys with a creamy brandy and mustard sauce recipe.

I’m often looking for ways to do lamb liver, mostly because it is very, very cheap and quite tasty. Unfortunately most people seem to reserve it for liver and onions or a tomatoey pasta thing.

So I was rather delighted when I came across an idea in a Turkish Recipe. This suggests you cook the liver with pernod, peppers, parsley and onions. The result was really delicious! It was a bit dry so I added a bit of chicken stock to make more of a sauce and then added a lot of ground black pepper.

Really, if you like liver try this! The vegetables are just allowed to sweat until soft, then mixed with pernod, stock, black pepper and parsley then mixed into a pan of cooked lamb liver. Who’d have thought of combining aniseed and liver? Well, apart from the Turks.

The downside to this recipe is that pernod is expensive. This didn’t bother me last night as I hadn’t paid for it but I might try and recreate it with ground star anise some day.

Here is my version of the  Turkish Liver with aniseed recipe (Arnavut Cigeri) 

I rather enjoyed my chicken livers last time I had them and, since they were so cheap, I was on a mission to do a proper budget meal with them. One recipe that caught my eye on the internet was for livers with caramelised onions and Madeira. That sounded good to me but the Madeira would seriously increase the cost of the meal.

I bought some cheap kidneys from Tesco (40p for 250g! ) planning on making a Rinones al Jerez (or Kidneys with sherry ). It was all going to plan until I got home and realised that my paprika had all gone. My flatmate had borrowed it the previous night. This irked me slightly as she will quite happily admit she doesn't actually know what paprika is, let alone what to do with it.

Apparently her friend had asked for some so she went through my rather extensive spice cupboard until she found it. It was taken off to her mate's house where she'd finished it off making paella. So the Kidneys weren't as great as I wanted and I got a bit stressed so I forgot to take pictures. This might have been for the best as the colour wasn't quite right without the paprika.Flatmates are now under strict instructions to leave a note if they finish my stuff in future. Grrrr! Apparently she nearly refilled the bottle too,  from the large pot of red powder  in my cupboard. Bloody good thing she didn't because it was, in fact, my extra hot chilli powder!  And finally here is the recipe for Rinones al Jerez (Spanish Lamb Kidneys with Sherry).

Every now and again, when work is slow, I'll read some of the web pages devoted to food photography to see what I can learn. I've been making some progress. Compare my first photos to the ones on this page and you'll see what I mean. Most of these sites talk about colour, lighting, beackground, depth of focus and so on. What most of them don't mention is that there are some foods that really are not photogenic. Nothing will make them look pretty.

The worst culprits for this are large pieces of stewed meat, like the oxtail I had for dinner last night. First I tried some close ups.

That didn't really help since oxtail isn't the prettiest meat to look at. Then I tried a some distance shots. This was the best one.

But no matter how many bits of greenery I threw at it, the oxtail just wouldn't look pretty. At least in this one you can see how rich and winey the sauce was.

Originally the oxtail was supposed to be served with a pearl barley “risotto” with just carrots and leeks. But after inspecting the 300g of tail, I noticed there wasn't very much meat  so I decided to add some red lentils and bacon to the barley mixture.

I stewed the oxtail in some red wine (Hardy's cab-shiraz which is on a half price offer at Tesco at the time of writing) along with carrot, celeriac, mushrooms onion and parsnip. I added a fair bit of rosemary too. The sauce was really rich and tasty and all the vegetables had taken on the flavours of the wine. The meat needed long slow cooking so I left the hob on its minimum setting and just had the stew steaming ( but not simmering) for a little over 3 hours.  

It was an interesting meal to eat. Oxtail is very fatty, which is probably why it is so nice. I could feel my arteries clogging up with every mouthful. At the same time, the pearl barley and lentil combination was loaded with protein and fibre. It actually tasted like it was really good for you but, unlike bran based food, it tasted good too!

I'm not sure if I'll get oxtail again soon. It was very nice, but you pay a lot for a small amount of meat, even if it is on special offer. I really loved the barley and lentils. I think it would make a fantastic vegetarian meal if the bacon was left out. I'll definitely be using it to accompany other stews.