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Mutton, Fillets, with Kidney

A dish of mutton fillets wrapped around kidney, baked or broiled, served with French beans and a brown tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton, Fillets, with Kidney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Place a piece of kidney between two pieces of mutton.

  2. Lard the meat with thin strips of bacon in five or six places. Trim the lardons almost level with the meat.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil or grill for about 12 minutes, or cook in a buttered tin in the oven under buttered paper, turning when half done. Glaze and crisp the surface.

  2. Dish with a pile of French beans or a piece of FL. KOLKTs in the center.

  3. Pour around a sauce made by mixing 1 ½ cups brown sauce with ¼ cup tomato pulp, 1 tablespoon sherry, and a few drops of carmine.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Mutton kidney
Adds a rich, soft, savoury centre that flavours the surrounding meat.
Mutton
Forms the outer layers that enclose the kidney and cook to a tender, browned surface.
Bacon
Lardons melt during cooking, adding fat that keeps the lean meat moist and flavourful.
Brown sauce
Forms the base of the serving sauce, providing body and savoury depth.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity and body to the sauce, balancing its richness.
Sherry
Adds a sweet-tart aroma and depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Turning the meat when half done. Turning at the halfway point lets both sides brown evenly and cook through, so the kidney centre is done without the outside drying out.

“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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