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A Few Breakfast Dishes

Kidneys sautéed in butter, thickened with flour and stock, finished with white wine or lemon, optionally with ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

A Few Breakfast Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the kidneys

  1. Slice the kidneys thinly.

  2. Heat butter in a skillet and add the kidneys, seasoning with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Fry for 5 to 10 minutes, turning often.

  4. Transfer the kidneys to a hot dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add stock to the skillet and thicken with flour and butter mixed together.

  2. If using, add chopped ham to the sauce.

  3. Once boiling, stir in white wine or lemon juice, pour over the kidneys, and serve.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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
The main ingredient, which is cooked briefly so it stays tender rather than tough.
Butter
Fats the skillet and carries flavor during frying, and with flour it enriches the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory depth.
White wine or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavor.

The step that matters

Fry the kidneys briefly over high heat. Kidneys turn firm and rubbery when overcooked. A short, hot fry with frequent turning cooks the thin slices through while keeping them tender.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, flour, ham, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, ham, white wine. 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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