Scottish sautéed veal kidney is extremely tasty, tender, nutritious and easy to make on a busy weekday night.

Organ meats are nutrient-dense and regularly eaten in traditional cultures. I have cooked and shared on this blog a few dishes incorporating animal organs, because we need to keep talking about the ancestral wisdom that has been lost in the modern days.

Nose-to-Tail Eating is Traditional

Particularly, this way of consuming the whole animal including offal is called “nose-to-tail eating”. Whether you think it’s trendy or disgusting, “nose-to-tail eating” provides more well rounded nutrition to human bodies. As long as you eat animal products, consuming the whole animal is more economical, and more environmentally friendly too.

My friend Creag and I were set out to make some traditional Scottish recipes from The Scots Kitchen cookbook. We even made our own mushroom ketchup that’s often used in old-fashioned Scottish dishes. Given my fascination in traditional cooking and culture, I was very excited to pick out an organ recipe from the book. This Scottish sautéed veal kidney recipe below is adapted from the “Scots Kidney Collops” recipe in the book.

Steps to Make Scottish Sautéed Veal Kidney

The following images illustrate important steps to make Scottish sautéed veal kidney. The full recipe can be found at the end of this post.

Take 1 fresh veal kidney, approximately 1 pound, for this recipe.
Slice the outer red part of the kidney into 1cm thick pieces. Be sure to cut around the core of the kidney, which is a white tissue mass that’s too tough to eat. Discard the core.
Soak the kidney slices in a bowl of cold water for 10 mins to wash off the blood.
Remove kidney slices from the water, and pad dry with a paper towel. Dust each slice of kidney on both side with flour.
Heat the butter in a heavy bottom frying pan, brown the kidney slices on medium heat, for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side.
Add chopped shallot, hot water, vinegar, mushroom ketckup, minced parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer on medium heat for 5 minutes uncovered, while the liquid is reduced to a gravy.

Making This Dish Gluten-Free or Paleo

Flour substitute

Regular wheat flour can be substituted by a flour of your choice to meet dietary requirement. I have used oat flour as a gluten-free alternative, and almond flour as a grain-free and low-carb alternative. If you try other flours such as cassava flour, coconut flour as grain-free replacement or Masa Harina, brown rice flour as gluten-free replacement, I would love to hear how you like them in this recipe. You can use any of the grain-free flour mentioned above if you are following a paleo diet or on a whole 30 program.

Butter substitute

When you need a dairy-free replacement for butter, for example if you are following the paleo or whole 30 diet, use ghee, tallow, lard or avocado oil.

Related: More Organ Recipes You Will Love

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