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Kidneys and Bacon

A dish of boiled kidneys coated in flour, fried with bacon, and served in a mushroom ketchup sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Kidneys and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Plunge the kidneys into very hot water.

  2. Skin the kidneys.

  3. Slice the kidneys crosswise.

  4. Mix flour, pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  5. Dip each kidney slice into the mixture.

Fry the bacon and kidneys

  1. Fry the bacon over low heat, turning often until cooked.

  2. Remove the bacon to a hot dish.

  3. Fry the kidney slices in the bacon fat, turning every minute until cooked, about five minutes.

  4. Place the cooked kidneys on the dish with the bacon.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Pour off excess bacon fat.

  2. Mix flour with enough water to make a thick sauce.

  3. Gradually add the flour and water mixture to the pan, stirring until it boils.

  4. Add mushroom ketchup.

  5. Strain the sauce over the kidneys.

  6. Serve.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and mild when cooked briefly over direct heat.
Bacon
Its fat fries the kidneys and adds savoury, smoky flavour to the dish.
Flour
Coats the kidney slices and thickens the pan juices into a sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the kidney slices in the bacon fat. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery if overcooked, so they should be cooked briefly over steady heat and turned often until just done. The flour coating helps them brown lightly and stay moist.

“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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