• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Forager Chef

Foraging and Cooking Mushrooms, Wild and Obscure Food

  • Home
  • About
  • Mushrooms
    • Mushroom Archive
    • Posts by Species
      • Other Mushrooms
        • Lobster Mushrooms
        • Shrimp of the Woods
        • Truffles
        • Morels
        • Shaggy Mane
        • Hericium
        • Puffball
      • Polypores
        • Hen of the Woods
        • Dryad Saddle
        • Chicken of The Woods
        • Cauliflowers
        • Ischnoderma
        • Beefsteak
      • Chanterelles
        • Black Trumpet
        • Hedgehogs
        • Yellowfeet
      • Gilled
        • Matsutake
        • Honey Mushrooms
        • Russula / Lactarius
          • Candy Caps
          • Saffron Milkcap
          • Indigo Milkcap
      • Boletes
        • Porcini
        • Leccinum
        • Slippery Jacks
    • Recipes
      • Fresh
      • Dried
      • Preserves
    • The Basics
  • Plants
    • Plant Archive
    • Leafy Green Recipes
      • Leafy Green Plant Varieties
    • Ramps
    • Wild Herbs and Spices
      • Spruce and Conifers
      • Pollen
      • Prickly Ash
      • Bergamot / Wild Oregano
      • Golpar / Cow Parsnip
    • Wild Fruit
      • Wild Plums
      • Highbush Cranberry
      • Wild Grapes
      • Rowanberries
      • Wild Cherries
      • Aronia
      • Nannyberry
      • Wild Blueberries
    • From The Garden
    • Nuts, Roots, Tubers and Grains
    • Stalks and Shoots
  • Meat
    • Four-Legged Animals
      • Venison
      • Small Game
    • Poultry
    • Fish/Seafood
    • Offal
    • Charcuterie
  • Recipes
    • Pickles, Preserves, Etc
    • Fermentation
    • Condiments
    • Appetizers
    • Soup
    • Salad
    • Side Dishes
    • Entrees
    • Baking
    • Sweets
  • Video
    • Foraging Videos
    • Lamb and Goat Series
    • YouTube Tutorials
  • Press
    • Podcasts
  • Work
    • Public Speaking
    • Charity and Private Dinners
    • Forays / Classes / Demos

Smoked Venison Kidneys

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

sliced smoked kidney charcuterieSmoked venison kidneys are not only one of the best ways I’ve had kidneys (steak and kidney pie is my other standby) but it’s one of the best recipes for offal and organ meats in my repertoire, period. If you’ve had kidneys are didn’t care for them in the past, or if you’re new to cooking kidneys and want something that everyone will eat, I can guarantee you this is a great place to start. 

Besides the trotters/feet and gut bag, kidneys are right up there with the most discarded parts of venison, and I get it. Even after my years of nose-to tail and whole-animal cooking and tutelage in professional restaurants, kidneys were still a mystery to me until I started harvesting my own animals. 

“If smoked testicles are like a hot dog, smoked kidneys are the fancy bologna of smoked organ meats.”

Kidneys are wobbly, wiggly bits, and, if you’ve ever held one warm, fresh from a creature, you’ll know they have a certain aroma that is probably about as close to smelling fresh animal piss as most people will ever come. Delicious, I know—just being real with you. Hot dog and sausage casings used to be full of shit, too. 

The funny thing is, now, after a couple years of eating and (gasp!)  enjoying kidneys from venison and lamb I butcher, I can tell you, without a doubt, that kidneys are one of the best pieces of offal there is to be had. If you like liver, even if you don’t like liver, you will like kidneys. In fact, I definitely prefer kidneys to liver, given the choice. Kidneys have a couple benefits, but there’s a big one that stands out to me.  

Smoked venison kidney recipe

They kinda end up looking like magic beans. Don’t worry, even though they look a bit wrinkled, they’re still soft and tender in the middle.

It’s tough to overcook kidneys 

Unlike liver, venison kidneys are really hard to overcook. Really hard. The timeline of the smoked venison kidney recipe here I’m sharing might catch you off guard–you cook them for 1.5 hours. If you cooked liver like that, even at a low temp, it’s going to be a tough, crumbly, livery affair. For reference, most of the time I cook liver it’s either hot and fast, or manipulated in some way like pate or my venison liver and bacon dumplings. 

Soaking and brining to calm the flavor 

Soaking and then brining to calm the flavor is really the secret here, and it’s one that I borrowed from another recipe of mine for offal: smoked testicles. Personally, I find testicles to have an even stronger flavor than kidneys. Kidneys have the flavor of iron you’d associate with liver, but testicles are another thing entirely, especially from lamb that I usually cook with. 

 

Magically, brining and smoking the ol’rocky mountain oyster transformed them into something much more delicious than I expected, and a nice cheeseplate nibble you could feed to the pickiest 7 year old you know. I had a hunch brining and smoking would be a good treatment for testicles, but I was honestly shocked at how mild they came out. If you didn’t know that they were, you’d think they were some kind of hot dog or a piece of charcuterie.

Since the testicles were so good smoked, I tried the same method with a tiny adjustment for the sweetness of liver/kidney. If smoked testicles are like a hot dog, smoked kidneys are the fancy bologna of smoked organ meats—the flavor and texture are eerily reminiscent of each other, if bologna was crossed with braunschweiger. 

Ideas for using 

Charcuterie and snack plates 

Smoked kidneys will be a great conversation piece for a holiday cheese or charcuterie plate, just slice them thin and have a little hot mustard and crackers ready. 

Salads, pasta, sandwiches and more 

While smoked testicles are very soft and supple, kidneys will be more firm, which means they can be cut into slices or slivers and added to things. Imagine thin, smoky slivers tossed in a salad with dried fruit and nuts, stirred into carbonara with bacon at the last minute, or nestled into a sandwich of other cold cuts with a nice slice of provalone and some pickled peppers. I’m sure there’s plenty you can find to do with them. 

Bonus: smoked kidneys are a great dog treat 

Rescue pitbull eating smoked venison kidneys for a treat

Offal is great for your dog, although small dogs and those with kidney or bladder stones shouldn’t eat tons of kidneys.

Sometimes if I have a lot of them, I might smoke kidneys for a good, natural dog treat/supplement. If you want to try that, you’ll want to skip brining them since too much salt isn’t good for your pooch. Other than that, the recipe is the same. Smoked kidneys will last for 3 days in the fridge after cooking if they aren’t brined. 

sliced smoked kidney charcuterie
Print Recipe
0 from 0 votes

Smoked Venison Kidneys

Smoked venison kidneys are a delicious way to eat one of the most under-utilized parts of the deer. You could serve them to people that don't like organ meats and many wouldn't know what they are, especially with a swipe of good mustard.
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time1 hr 30 mins
Soaking and Brining1 d 8 hrs
Course: Appetizer, Breakfast, Salad
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Charcuterie, Kidneys, Offal, Venison
Servings: 8

Ingredients

Kidneys

  • 1 lb kidneys or up to double that amount (see note on the brine)

Brine *see note

  • 1.5 T 10g Kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon 2g pink salt (sodium nitrate)
  • ¼ cup 50 g brown sugar or maple syrup (use a little extra than 1/4 cup if you use maple to account for the water it contains)
  • 1 tablespoon cooking oil for smoking
  • Aromatics you can adjust to your taste and what you have
  • 1 large clove garlic grated, minced or mashed
  • 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
  • ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 bay leaves

  • ½ inch piece cinnamon
  • 10 allspice berries
  • 5 whole cloves

Instructions

Removing the fat

  • Remove any membrane from the kidneys if attached, then inspect the middle portion where they attach to the body and remove the fat from the inside of the kidneys, I like to do this with a sharp, thin bladed scissors or pruning shears.
  • The fat can be tricky to remove without a thin, sharp tool. If you don’t have a sharp shears, you could also remove the fat inside by freezing the kidneys half-way to make them less wiggly. That being said, if you can’t get the fat out, or don’t want to, don’t worry, it will still be ok.

Soaking and brining

  • Soak the kidneys in water for 24 hours in the fridge. Meanwhile, bring the brine ingredients to a boil, then cool completely.
  • Add the soaked kidneys to the brine, and leave for 2 days.

Smoking

  • Lightly oil the kidneys, then smoke at 250F for 1.5 hours or until an internal temperature of 150 F. Cool, slice, and enjoy fooling your friends and family into thinking they’re eating fancy smoked bologna.
  • Smoked kidneys will last in the fridge for 5-6 days, and can be frozen.

Notes

*On the brine
You will have enough to use for a number of things, you can use the brine for another purpose or re-use it 1x.

sliced smoked kidney charcuterie

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit

Related

Previous Post: « Smoked Venison Brisket
Next Post: Guide to Wild Rice (Purchasing and Cooking) »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jacqui

    January 2, 2021 at 7:41 pm

    oooh. I have a pair of moose kidneys in my freezer.
    This looks great, but it might wait for barbecue season.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Pre-Order MY BOOK

Categories

Forager Chef

Forager Chef

Instagram

foragerchef

🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Last entry. I’ve saved t 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Last entry. I’ve saved the smallest, fern gulliest plant for last. 

False Mermaid Weed (Floerkea proserpinacoides) is a good little plant Sam Thayer showed me. It’s tiny, as in all the photos are from me on my belly, in a wet ditch. It’s so small it’s hard to get the camera to even focus on it (see pic with my finger for scale). 

Mermaid weed likes wet areas, like ditches and spots that hold a bit of water (perfect mosquito habitat😁). 

Like chickweed, Floerkia greens are like nature’s Microgreens. They’re in the Limnanthaceae, (a new-ish group of brassicas) and like the Toothwort form earlier this week, you’ll taste a strong mustard-family flavor in a mouthful of their tender stems. 

They’re literally wild mustard sprouts, and, unlike other wild sprouts (garlic mustard 🤬) they stay sprouts, and, they actually taste good. 

It has a wide range over much of the eastern and western U.S., and is listed as secure globally, but is endangered in some states and shouldn’t be disturbed in those places. 

I’m lucky enough to have some large colonies near me so I do clip a few handfuls each year-my annual reward for removing some of the garlic mustard nearby, that, along with atvs, dirt bikes, and contamination from local water pollution, is one of the biggest threats to this tiny green. 

#floerkiaproserpinacoides 
#wildsprouts #mustardsprouts #ferngully #tiny #foraging #mermaid #🧜‍♀️
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Virginia Bluebells (Merten 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are one of the most beautiful harbingers of spring I know, as well as one of the most delicious. 

They’re in the Borage family, along with the namesake plant, Comfrey (which I only eat a few flowers of occasionally) and Honeywort. 

The flavor of the greens, like borage, has a rich flavor some people might describe as mushroomy or fishy, but after a just a few moments of cooking (30-60 seconds) they get mild and delicious, with a subtle bitterness. It’s a good bitter though-nothing like dandelions or garlic mustard that aren’t fit to be in the same basket, let alone on the same plate. 

The shoots are sweet and delicious, much more mild than the greens. As they can grow to be over a foot long, they’re almost more of a vegetable than a leafy green, depending on when you harvest them. 

Bluebells love moist, rich soil, but you don’t have to go to the woods to get them. Many people know Virginia Bluebells as a garden plant, and they can make a great edible addition to your landscape.

#virginiabluebells #foraging #ephemerals #springwildflowers #wildfoodlove #mertensiavirginica
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Narrow-leaved Wild Leek / 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Narrow-leaved Wild Leek / White Ramp (Allium burdickii) 

If you’re in a ramp patch you might occasionally see some with white stems (pic 1,2). These are a cousin to the more common variety with much larger leaves and red stems (pic 3,4,5)

Allium burdickii is not as common as the red-stemmed variety, and in every ramp patch I’ve been in, the white ramp is heavily outnumbered. 

Where I harvest, I like to leave them alone, and mark the areas where they grow with sticks or middens on the ground so I can go back in the fall and help them spread their seeds. I also try and remove garlic mustard when I see it-a much more imminent threat in my mind to ramps than foragers out to gather some leaves. 

2020 was a banner year for ramp seeds, and you can still help the plants right now (pic 7) as some seed heads are still full and would love for you to give them a shake as you walk by. 

#alliumburdickii #ramps #ephemerals #foraging #spring
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 #4: Erythronium leaves E 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

#4: Erythronium leaves 

Erythronium (Trout Lily) are another ephemeral that I see widespread in my ramp patches, there’s at least 32 species world-wide, with at least one endangered species in MN (Dwarf Trout Lily). 

They’re a beautiful, delicious plant I eat every year, but I can’t recommend serving them to the general public. Plenty of people say these are edible, but also emetic if eaten in “quantity”. 

I can tell you, at least with E. albidum and E. americanum I’ve eaten, that some people are much more sensitive than others, so if you want to make a salad to serve people, make sure they’re comfortable eating it, and use a few leaves as a garnish. 

Funny enough, I didn’t learn about these from a foraging book. Like knotweed, I learned about them from one of my favorite chefs: Michel Bras, one of the most influential chefs of the turn of the 21 century. 

Any chef that works with wild plants owes a debt to Bras. His book, although a little dated now, still teaches me new things all the time. While flipping through the book I also caught a recipe using tansy flowers 😳 that I’d probably pass on. 

The whitefish crusted with sunflower seeds is a dish of mine from 2012, and an example of how I eat the leaves: a few at a time, as a garnish. 

#troutlily #erythronium #michelbras #ephemerals #foraging
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Plant #3: Cutleaf Toothwor 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Plant #3: Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) is another beautiful spring wildflower that loves to grow in the same habitat you’ll see ramps and spring beauty. 

Its small at first, but grows to a worthy size for eating as it flowers. It’s related to cabbage and mustard greens (Brassicaceae) and eating just a few leaves will give you a potent, spicy pop of mustard-family flavor reminiscent of horseradish. 

Eaten in combination with other things, like in a salad, the flavor becomes submissive and you’ll barely know it’s there. 

Some people eat the spicy roots shaped like canine teeth, but for the work I hardly think they’re worth it. 

A great wild spring green for the salad bowl-eat them leaves, tender stem, flowers and all🤤. 

#cutleaftoothwort #cadamineconcatenata #ephemeral #springedibles #foraging #wildfoodlove
🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Plant #2 is Virginia water 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Plant #2 is Virginia waterleaf, and, I’m cheating a bit as it’s semi-ephemeral. The plant comes up in spring and goes to flower, but gives a second harvest of fresh growth in the fall, where other ephemerals I know do not. 

This is a great starter wild green-easy to recognize with the splashes of white on the leaves that may or may not be present. After you learn it though, don’t be surprised if, like me, you eventually pass it up for more delicious greens nearby. 

The plant gets tough quick, and the flavor is..meh, so I usually have small amounts of very young greens in blends of blanched and sautéed mixes. 

My favorite part is the wee flower buds, that, if you get at the right time, can be harvested in decent quantity and are good steamed as they’ll soak up oil sautéed. 

#hydrophyllumvirginianum #waterleaf #foraging #fueledbynature #weedeater
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Footer

Privacy

  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.