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Pork Kidney, Fritters of

Pork kidney fritters are fried patties made from chopped kidneys, shallot, parsley, egg yolks, and butter, served with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley 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 ↓

Pork Kidney, Fritters of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Clean the pig’s kidneys and remove any membranes.

  2. Chop the kidneys into small pieces and mix with the shallot, parsley, and egg yolks.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan and add the kidney mixture, cooking until browned.

Shape and fry

  1. Wrap the mixture in pig’s caul and shape into fritters.

  2. Heat the frying fat in a pan and fry the fritters until golden brown.

  3. Serve with brown sauce.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + shallottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Shallot + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sauce and butter 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

Pig’s kidneys
Provide the main meaty filling, which cooks to a firm, savoury texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the chopped kidney mixture so it holds together when shaped.
Pig’s caul
Wraps the filling so it keeps its shape and stays moist while frying.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps brown the kidney mixture.

The step that matters

Browning the kidney mixture in butter. Cooking the chopped kidney until browned drives off excess moisture and builds savoury flavour through browning. If it is undercooked or too wet, the mixture will be soft and may not hold its shape when wrapped and fried.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, egg, shallot, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, egg, shallot, butter. 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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