Skip to main content
Main

Kidneys with Mushrooms

Kidneys cooked with mushrooms in a buttery sauce, served over toast or fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and butter 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 ↓

Kidneys with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the butter and onion in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until it browns.

  3. Pour in the stock, mushroom liquor, Worcestershire sauce, and seasoning.

  4. Let the mixture simmer for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the kidneys and mushrooms.

  2. Cook for 5-6 minutes, stirring often.

  3. Serve on toast or fried bread.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Lamb kidneys
Provide the main meat, which cooks quickly and turns tender in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion mixture into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture that blends into the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the other flavors.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the kidneys. Kidneys become rubbery and tough if overcooked. Adding them to the simmering sauce and cooking only briefly, with frequent stirring, keeps them tender and evenly heated.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, mushroom, butter, flour, onion, sauce):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, mushroom, butter, flour, onion, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes