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Broiled Kidneys with Maitre d’Hotel Butter

Broiled kidneys served on buttered toast with maitre d’Hôtel butter, parsley, lemon, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 with Maitre d’Hotel Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Wash the kidneys and remove the thin outer skin.

  2. Cut each kidney almost through the back to open them flat.

  3. Melt 1 ounce of butter and dip each kidney in it.

  4. Skewer each kidney flat and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the kidneys over a very hot fire.

  2. Mix chopped parsley, lemon juice, and remaining butter together.

  3. Once the kidneys are done, place them on buttered toast.

  4. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and top each with a bit of the maitre d’hotel butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 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

Sheep kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, cooked tender by quick high heat.
Butter
Coats the kidneys to keep them moist and adds richness while broiling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crust on the kidneys as they broil, adding light browning and texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter in the finishing sauce.

The step that matters

Broil the kidneys over a very hot fire. High heat cooks the kidneys quickly so they brown and stay tender. Cooking them too long toughens the meat and dries it out, so watch them closely.

“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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