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Grilled Kidneys Indian Style

Grilled kidneys seasoned with salt, pepper, curry powder, and lemon, served on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Grilled Kidneys Indian Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split the kidneys open and run a skewer through them to prevent curling.

  2. Lard the inside with thin strips of bacon.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Brush with oiled butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil on a grill over a bright flame until done.

  2. Sprinkle with curry powder.

  3. Serve on pieces of toasted bread.

  4. Remove the skewer and squeeze lemon juice over each kidney.

  5. Garnish with snippets of toasted bread.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Main protein; cooks to a tender texture when broiled until done.
Thin strips of bacon
Larding adds fat that bastes the kidneys as they cook, keeping them moist.
Oiled butter
Fat that carries heat across the surface, helping it brown and adding richness.
Curry powder
Adds aromatic spice compounds that flavour the kidneys once they are cooked.
Lemon juice
Acidity that brightens the rich, fatty flavour of the kidneys and bacon.
Toasted bread
Absorbs drippings and juices under the kidneys and adds a crisp, toasty contrast.

The step that matters

Broil over a bright flame until done. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery if overcooked, while undercooked ones are unpleasant to eat. High heat sears the outside quickly, so checking doneness closely matters.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Plumfits less well
  4. Mangofits less well

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