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Creamed Kidneys

A lamb kidney dish simmered with onion, parsley, and cream, served on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Creamed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Soak the lamb kidneys in cold salt water for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the skin and core, then slice the kidneys thinly.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine the kidneys, boiling water, salt, onion, parsley, and pepper.

  2. Cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Mix the cream, flour, and butter in a bowl.

  4. Add the mixture to the pot and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Serve on toasted rounds of 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, giving it its meaty texture and character.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter mixture so it clings to the kidneys as a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and smoothing the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy finish.

The step that matters

Add the mixture to the pot and bring to a boil. Flour needs to be heated through, usually at a boil, to thicken fully. Stirring the cream, flour and butter in before adding helps prevent lumps and a raw floury taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, parsley, pepper, cream, flour, butter, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, parsley, pepper, cream, flour, butter, bread. 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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