Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Kidneys and Bacon

A dish of broiled sheep kidneys served with crispy bacon and butter, optionally on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Broiled Kidneys and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the kidneys and split them without separating.

  2. Skewer every two or three kidneys together.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then dip in oiled butter.

Cook

  1. Broil over gas for about 4 minutes on each side.

  2. Fry the bacon slices until crispy, using 2 slices for each kidney.

Serve

  1. Arrange the bacon on a hot dish, place the kidneys in the center.

  2. Add a little maitre d'hotel butter on top of each kidney.

  3. Serve on toasted and buttered bread if desired.

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. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 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

Sheep's kidneys
Main protein; broiling sets the outside while the inside stays tender when not overcooked.
Streaky bacon
Fat and salt that crisp in the pan and add savoury flavour and browning.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the kidneys brown and stay juicy under heat.
Maitre d'hotel butter
Herb and lemon butter melting over the hot kidneys to add aroma and richness.

The step that matters

Broiling the kidneys. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery when overcooked. Four minutes per side over direct heat is enough to brown the surface while the centre stays tender and moist, so watch them closely.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes