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Kidney Soup

A soup made with kidney, water or stock, onion, carrot, cloves, mace, cornflour, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Kidney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onion and thinly slice the carrot.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the kidney, water, onion, carrot, and spices.

  2. Cook slowly without boiling hard.

  3. Blend the cornflour in a little water and add it to the soup along with Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. Stir continuously.

  4. Let the soup boil for a few minutes.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidney
Provides the main body and meaty flavour of the soup.
Cornflour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup body.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth to the stock.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the soup.

The step that matters

Blend the cornflour in a little water and stir continuously. Cornflour clumps if added dry or without first being mixed smooth in cold liquid. Stirring as it goes in and heats keeps the starch dispersed so the soup thickens evenly rather than lumping.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, clove, sauce, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, clove, sauce, pepper. 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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