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Onion Stuffed with Kidneys

Onion stuffed with kidneys is a baked dish of onions filled with kidney and anchovy mixture, topped with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Onion Stuffed with Kidneys

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the onions

  1. Boil the onions until three-quarters cooked, then drain.

  2. Slice off the top of each onion and scoop out the inside, leaving a hollow space.

Fill and bake

  1. Cut the kidneys into eight pieces and mix with minced onion, anchovies, parsley, and lime juice.

  2. Fill each onion with a lump of butter, the kidney mixture, and top with more minced onion and a pat of butter.

  3. Place the stuffed onions in a buttered baking dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

  4. Serve with a brown sauce poured over them.

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. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Bombay onions
Form the hollow edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Sheep's kidneys
Provide the rich, meaty filling that forms the main body of the dish.
Anchovies
Add savory depth and salty umami flavor to the kidney filling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps the onions brown in the dish.

The step that matters

Boil the onions to three-quarters cooked. Boiling only partly softens the onions so they hold their shape when scooped and filled. Fully cooked onions would collapse, and under-boiled ones would stay too firm to bake through with the filling.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lime, butter, pepper. 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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