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Stuffed Kidneys

Stuffed kidneys are kidney halves filled with a bread crumb and pork mixture, then broiled and served with sauce piquante.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Split the kidneys lengthwise, leaving enough meat and skin on one side to serve as a hinge.

  2. Rub the inside of the kidneys with melted butter.

  3. Broil the kidneys, back downward, over a bright fire for 8 minutes.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a double boiler, combine bread crumbs, cooked salt pork, parsley, and butter.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, and onion juice, then heat.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice and fill the kidneys with the stuffing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Use toothpicks to secure the edges and keep the stuffing in place.

  2. Pepper the stuffed kidneys and serve with sauce piquante.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Form the main body that is split, stuffed and broiled as the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and seasonings to form a soft, moist stuffing.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and salty flavor to the stuffing as it melts.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the stuffing brown lightly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich kidney and pork flavors.

The step that matters

Broil the kidneys back downward. Cooking the cut side down over a hot fire sears the surface and sets the texture quickly. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, so the time must be watched closely.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, pork, parsley, pepper, lemon. 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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