Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Kidneys

Stuffed kidneys filled with bread crumbs, salt pork, parsley, butter, onion juice, and lemon, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Stuffed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Split the kidneys lengthwise, leaving a hinge of meat and skin.

  2. Rub the inside with melted butter.

  3. Broil back down for 8 minutes over a bright fire.

Make the stuffing

  1. Combine bread crumbs, cooked salt pork, parsley, butter, pepper, salt, and onion juice.

  2. Heat the mixture in boiling water.

  3. Stir in lemon juice.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the kidneys with the mixture.

  2. Secure the edges with a toothpick.

  3. Season with pepper.

  4. Serve with sauce piquante.

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. Parsley + peppertop 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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, carrying the stuffing and cooking to tender bites.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the stuffing bulk and a soft, binding texture.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and salty flavor that seasons the stuffing.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the kidneys brown under the broiler.
Onion juice
Adds aromatic onion flavor to the stuffing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich kidney and pork flavors.

The step that matters

Broil back down for 8 minutes over a bright fire. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, so a short, hot broil sears the surface while keeping the interior tender and moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, pork, parsley, pepper, lemon):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, pork, parsley, pepper, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes