Skip to main content
Main

Kidneys Saute, with Sheeey, Poet, Oe Champagne

Sautéed kidneys cooked with butter, flour, spices, broth, and Sherry or Champagne, served on toast.

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

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 ↓

Kidneys Saute, with Sheeey, Poet, Oe Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut each kidney into five pieces.

  2. Heat butter in a pan until very hot and beginning to smoke.

  3. Add kidneys and stir for 2–3 minutes until set.

  4. Mix in flour, salt, and pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. Add broth and wine.

  2. If no broth, use water with a little glaze.

  3. Add coloring for better appearance.

  4. Do not let the mixture boil.

  5. Cook for a few minutes.

  6. Add more liquid if needed.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast.

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. Wine + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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 protein, which sets and firms briefly when seared in hot butter.
Butter
Carries heat for searing and adds richness and browning to the kidney surface.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a light sauce as it cooks with the liquids.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the rich kidney flavour.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds savoury body.

The step that matters

Do not let the mixture boil. Boiling a flour-thickened sauce can make it grainy or thin, and can toughen the kidney pieces, so keep it at a gentle 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.

You might also like

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