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Kidney Toast

A toast topped with sautéed kidneys, parsley, shallot, Worcestershire sauce, flour, and a breadcrumb-Parmesan crust, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Kidney Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the kidney filling

  1. Chop the kidneys, removing the outer skin and sinews, then mince them finely.

  2. In a pan, combine the minced kidneys, chopped parsley, and shallot with butter and fry until cooked.

  3. Add Worcestershire sauce, sprinkle in flour, and boil for three minutes.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter the slices of toast and cover them with the kidney mixture.

  2. Top with a thick layer of bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for ten minutes until golden.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Provide the meaty, rich main flavour of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the kidney mixture as it boils, so it clings to the toast.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth that balances the richness of the kidneys.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, nutty flavour and helps the topping turn golden.

The step that matters

Boiling the kidney mixture with flour. Flour thickens only when it is heated and stirred into the liquid. Boiling for the full three minutes cooks out the raw starch taste and gives a thick filling that will not soak into the toast and make it soggy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, flour, butter, shallot, pepper, bread, parmesan cheese):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, flour, butter, shallot, pepper, bread, parmesan cheese. 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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