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Kidney, Terrapin Style

Kidney, Terrapin Style is a sautéed kidney dish with butter, flour, milk, egg yolk, sherry, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Kidney, Terrapin Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Split the kidneys in half and trim off sinews and fat carefully.

  2. Cut the kidneys into small pieces and place them in a stewpan covered with cold water.

  3. Heat on moderate fire until almost boiling, then drain the water.

  4. Cover with fresh cold water and repeat this process three times, ensuring it does not boil.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter, then add the flour and mix.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until it boils.

  3. Add the kidneys, salt, and pepper, stirring until heated through.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk, sherry, and parsley.

  5. Serve immediately.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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
Provide the main meaty body of the dish, with a firm texture when cooked gently.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess as it thickens.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and gives it body and a silky texture when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat and can scramble or curdle if the sauce is too hot. Removing the pan from the heat before adding it keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper, egg, sherry):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, egg, sherry. 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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