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Rognons De Veau Sautés Au Vin De Champagne

Sautéed veal kidneys cooked with Champagne, espagnole sauce, mushrooms, butter, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Rognons De Veau Sautés Au Vin De Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the veal kidneys.

  2. Melt the butter in a hot skillet.

  3. Add the sliced kidneys and cook until firm, then remove from heat.

Make the sauce

  1. If using espagnole sauce, add it along with the Champagne.

  2. If not, mix in flour, return to heat, and add Champagne, stirring without boiling.

  3. Add the cooked mushrooms, then finish with butter, glaze, parsley, and chives.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Veal kidneys
Are the main protein; cooking them only until firm keeps them tender.
Butter
Provides fat for searing and enriches the sauce with a rich, glossy finish.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and savoury depth to the sauce, thickening it with a brown-sauce flavour.
Champagne
Adds acidity and aroma, deglazing the pan and lightening the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when espagnole sauce is not used.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender, meaty texture to the dish.

The step that matters

Stirring without boiling the Champagne sauce. Boiling a flour-thickened sauce can make it lumpy or cause the starch to break down and thin, so it should be stirred gently as the Champagne is added.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, sauce, champagne, flour, mushroom, egg):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, sauce, champagne, flour, mushroom, egg. 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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