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Kidney and Madeira Sauce

A sauce for kidneys made with butter, flour, Madeira wine, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Kidney and Madeira Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Cut the outer membrane off the kidneys.

  2. Soak the kidneys in cold water for 2 hours.

  3. Drain the water.

  4. Place the kidneys in fresh cold water in a pot.

  5. Boil the kidneys for 4 hours.

  6. Season the kidneys with salt and pepper to taste.

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken the butter with a little flour.

  2. Add the thickened butter to the sauce.

  3. Just before serving, pour in the Madeira wine.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + madeira winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + madeira winetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together582 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

Kidneys
Main protein; long boiling makes them tender after the membrane is removed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour forms a thickener for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter so it can give the sauce body.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the kidneys for 4 hours. A long, gentle simmer in water is what breaks down the tough connective tissue in kidneys; cutting it short leaves them chewy. Keep the water at a steady simmer so they do not toughen.

“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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