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Kidney Toast

A toast topped with a creamy kidney paste flavored with port wine, red currant jelly, anchovy vinegar, and chili.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Kidney Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Blanch the kidneys in scalding water, then dry them with a cloth.

  2. Make a strong broth from bones or scraps and stew the kidneys until tender.

  3. Remove the kidneys, drain them, and reserve the cooking gravy.

  4. Pound the kidneys with some butter to a paste and pass through a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 teaspoons of butter, stir in 1 tablespoon of flour until creamy.

  2. Gradually add 1 cup of the reserved gravy and the kidney paste, stirring well.

  3. Flavor the mixture with 1 tablespoon port wine, 1 teaspoon red currant jelly, 1 tablespoon anchovy vinegar, and chili.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil until thickened, then pour over 4 slices of hot fried toast.

Serve

  1. 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

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

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

  2. Port wine + red curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Provide the main meaty body and texture of the dish once pounded into a paste.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavor, giving it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly with melted butter.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory depth and moisture.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and fruity depth to balance the savory sauce.
Anchovy vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and a salty, savory note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Pass the kidney paste through a sieve. Sieving removes fibers and small pieces so the sauce turns smooth rather than grainy. Pounding alone leaves tough strands that a fine sieve catches.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, port wine, anchovy, vinegar, bread):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Red currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, port wine, anchovy, vinegar, 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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