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Sausages and Kidneys, Semi-fried

A semi-fried dish of sausages and sliced kidneys cooked with onions, bacon, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sausages and Kidneys, Semi-fried

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the bacon and chopped onions; fry for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Cut the sausages in half lengthwise and place them in the pan.

  4. Add the kidney slices in the center, season with salt and pepper, and fry gently for 5 minutes, turning occasionally. Be careful not to overcook, or they will become tough.

  5. Sprinkle with flavoring, add water, and simmer for 2 minutes.

  6. Serve with kidneys in the center and sausages arranged around.

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

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox kidney
Provides the main meat; it turns tender with brief frying and toughens if overcooked.
Sausages
Add savoury fat and browning from the pan as they fry.
Bacon
Releases fat into the pan that flavours the onions and the other meats.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet as they fry in the bacon fat and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and a rich, nutty flavour as it browns.

The step that matters

Fry the kidney gently for 5 minutes. Kidney is lean and its proteins tighten quickly under high heat, so overcooking makes it tough and rubbery. Gentle heat and turning keep it tender and evenly cooked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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