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Kidneys with Tomatoes

A baked dish of sliced kidneys and tomatoes seasoned with lemon, salt, cayenne, and butter, topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Kidneys with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking dish.

  3. Sprinkle some bread crumbs over the bottom.

Layer and bake

  1. Open the tin of kidneys and slice the kidneys thin.

  2. Layer the kidneys in the dish, seasoning with salt, cayenne, and a squeeze of lemon.

  3. Peel the tomatoes and season them.

  4. Layer the tomatoes on top of the kidneys.

  5. Continue layering until the dish is filled.

  6. Finish with a layer of bread crumbs.

  7. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

  8. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Form the bulk of the dish, providing substance and a soft, tender texture when baked.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that flavour the layers and keep the dish from drying out.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the top brown and keeps the crumbs moist.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping and absorb some juices as the dish bakes.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, butter, bread, 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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