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Kidney Toast a LA Madras

A toast topped with fried sheep kidneys seasoned with pepper, salt, cayenne, lemon peel, and optional ham or bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Kidney Toast a LA Madras

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Skin the kidneys and cut them lengthwise into slices.

  2. Season the kidneys with pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Dip the kidneys in the beaten egg, then roll them in bread crumbs mixed with lemon peel.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the kidneys in butter in a frying pan over medium heat until cooked.

  2. Prepare toast and spread a thin layer of curvy paste on top.

  3. Place the fried kidneys on the toast.

  4. Serve with thin slices of broiled ham or bacon if desired.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and firm.
Well-beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the kidney slices.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in butter.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the coating and adds richness.

The step that matters

Frying the kidneys until cooked. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery if overcooked, so they should be fried just until cooked through over medium heat, which lets the crumb coating brown without drying the meat.

“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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