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A LA Roberto Diavolo

Grilled kidney skewers served with a spicy cayenne and lemon butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,039 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare and grill

  1. Skewer the kidneys and brush them with butter.

  2. Place them on a grill close to the fire and cook quickly, turning every minute.

  3. When half done, season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. If using, mix chopped gherkins or chilies, or piccalilli with its liquid on a hot plate.

  2. Add lemon juice and a pat of butter to the mixture.

  3. Remove the kidneys from the skewer and coat them in the mixture.

  4. Serve immediately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,197 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together85,512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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; cooking them quickly keeps the inside tender.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown while the kidneys grill.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that seasons the surface of the kidneys as they cook.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery mixture coating the kidneys.

The step that matters

Turning the kidneys on the grill. Turning every minute over a fire close to the heat cooks the outside quickly, browning it while the centre stays tender. Letting one side sit too long can scorch it and leave the inside unevenly cooked.

“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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