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Mutton Kidneys

Thinly sliced mutton kidneys are floured, fried until crisp, then seasoned with pepper, salt, and garlic and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,090 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mutton Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Using a very sharp knife, cut the mutton kidneys into the thinnest possible slices.

  2. Flour the slices and fry them quickly until they are crisp.

  3. While frying, add pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Dip the fried kidneys in a good gravy, adding a bit of garlic for a slight flavor.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + garlictop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + garlictop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together673 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when sliced thin and fried quickly.
Flour
Coats the slices so they fry to a crisp, browned outer layer.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor when the fried kidneys are dipped in it.
Garlic
Adds a subtle aromatic flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the thin slices quickly. Thin slices cook fast, so high heat for a short time gives a crisp flour coating while keeping the kidney inside tender. Overcooking toughens the meat and dries it out.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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