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Stuffed Tomatoes a LA Trouville

A French kidney ragout with onions, butter, flour, broth, wine, bouquet garni, mushrooms, served with rice or mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes a LA Trouville

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce base

  1. Slice the kidneys and fry them in butter with the onions for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Remove the kidneys and mix flour with the remaining onions and butter over low heat.

Make the sauce

  1. Add broth, white wine, bouquet garni, and minced mushroom stalks and peelings.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer for 15 minutes, then strain the sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the kidneys to the pan, moisten with sauce, add peeled mushrooms, and heat gently until tender.

  2. Serve the ragout with a border of rice or mashed potatoes.

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. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender when gently heated in the sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying the kidneys and onions, adding richness and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and onions.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory depth.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and body to the finished ragout.

The step that matters

Remove the kidneys and mix flour with the remaining onions and butter over low heat.. Cooking the flour gently in fat until it loses its raw taste lets it thicken the sauce smoothly. High heat can scorch the flour or brown it unevenly, and lumps form if liquid is added too early.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, white wine, mushroom, rice):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, white wine, mushroom, rice. 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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