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Broiled Kidneys

Kidneys are soaked, seasoned, breaded, broiled, and topped with a parsley‑lemon butter, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the kidneys and split them in half.

  2. Soak the kidneys overnight in salted water.

  3. Dry the kidneys, then sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  4. Butter the kidneys and roll them in bread crumbs.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the kidneys until tender and brown.

  2. Beat a small quantity of butter until creamy, then mix in chopped parsley and lemon juice.

  3. Place about 1 teaspoon of the butter mixture on top of each kidney.

  4. Serve the kidneys on toast.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
The main ingredient, which becomes tender and browned under the broiler.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the bread crumbs brown during broiling.
Bread crumbs
Form a coating that browns on the outside while the kidneys cook.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and kidney flavor.

The step that matters

Broil the kidneys until tender and brown. Kidneys can turn tough and rubbery if overcooked, so they need watching under the broiler. The bread crumb and butter coating browns quickly, so the cook must balance tenderness against browning.

“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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