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Kidney Toast

A toast topped with sautéed veal kidneys, calf liver, egg yolk, butter, and seasonings, served with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Kidney Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the kidneys and liver into pieces.

Cook the meat

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan and cook the meat until done but not overcooked.

  2. Remove from heat and add the beaten egg yolk, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Spread the mixture on squares of fried bread.

  2. Serve with mashed potatoes.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

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

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

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal kidneys
Form the main meat base of the dish, giving it its savory flavor.
Calf's liver
Adds richness and a softer texture to the meat mixture.
Egg yolk
Binds the cooked meat into a spreadable mixture as it sets gently off the heat.
Butter
Carries the heat in the pan and adds fat for browning and flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the offal.

The step that matters

Cook the meat until done but not overcooked. Kidney and liver turn tough and dry when overcooked. Removing them from heat before the egg yolk is added keeps the yolk from scrambling and keeps the mixture smooth and spreadable.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, liver, butter, egg, pepper, lemon, bread):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, liver, butter, egg, pepper, lemon, 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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