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Kidneys and Bacon

Kidneys and bacon are fried, coated in flour, and served with a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Kidneys and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and core the kidneys, then slice them thinly.

  2. Mix flour, salt, and pepper on a plate, and dip each kidney slice in the mixture.

Cook

  1. Melt bacon fat or butter in a frying pan over low heat.

  2. Fry the bacon gently, turning it repeatedly until done, then place it on a hot dish.

  3. Fry the kidney slices in the same fat for about four minutes, turning them after one minute.

  4. Once done, place the kidneys on the dish with the bacon.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix a little flour with the remaining fat to make a smooth paste.

  2. Gradually add stock or water to make a thick sauce, stir over heat until it boils, then strain over the kidneys.

  3. Add ketchup to the sauce 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Butter + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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 texture and flavour of the dish.
Flour
Coats the kidney slices and thickens the sauce into a smooth paste.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that flavours the pan and the dish.
Stock or water
Liquid that, with the flour, forms the thick sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the kidney slices. Kidney turns tough and rubbery if overcooked, so brief, even frying over a moderate heat keeps it tender. Cooking it for too long hardens the proteins and dries the slices.

“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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