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Kidney Soup

A soup made with sliced kidneys, butter, flour, ground rice, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom sauce, and simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom 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 ↓

Kidney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Cut the kidneys into thin slices and sprinkle with flour.

  2. Melt the butter in a pot and brown the kidneys.

Simmer the soup

  1. Pour in the cold water and stir until it boils.

  2. Skim the surface carefully and allow to simmer slowly for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the ground rice with Worcestershire and mushroom sauces.

  2. Pour the mixture into the soup and stir well until it boils.

  3. Cook slowly for an additional 10 minutes and serve without the meat.

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

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

  2. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provide the main meat and rich, savory flavor of the soup.
Flour
Coats the kidney slices so they brown and help thicken the soup.
Ground rice
Thickens the broth to a smoother, heavier body as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the browning of the kidneys and adds richness.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface. Skimming removes foam and impurities that rise as the water heats, keeping the broth clear and clean-tasting during the long simmer.

“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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