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Rognons De Mouton Au Vin De Champagne

Lamb kidneys sautéed with butter, flour, shallot, parsley, and champagne wine, finished with lemon juice and butter.

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 ↓

Rognons De Mouton Au Vin De Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Soak the kidneys in cold water for 5 minutes, then cut them in half and remove the skin and nerves.

  2. Chop the kidneys and blanch them in boiling salted water, then drain.

Cook and finish

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over high heat and sauté the kidneys for 5 to 6 minutes to retain their juices.

  2. Remove from heat, stir in the flour, shallot, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the white wine and return to heat to finish cooking without boiling.

  4. Before serving, add the fresh butter and lemon juice.

  5. If the sauce is too abundant, remove the kidneys and reduce the sauce to the desired consistency, then return the kidneys to the sauce without heating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb kidneys
Provide the main meat, whose texture turns tender or tough depending on how briefly they are cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and helping the kidneys brown while sautéing.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices and white wine into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, deglazing the pan and building the sauce's flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness, balancing the richness of the butter and wine sauce.

The step that matters

Add the white wine and return to heat without boiling. Boiling a sauce containing flour can break it or make it grainy, and prolonged high heat toughens the kidneys, so gentle heat keeps both smooth and tender.

“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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