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Kidney Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Kidney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Roll the pieces of kidney in a little flour.

  2. Fry the kidney in butter for a few minutes.

  3. Wash, dry, and cut the vegetables into small pieces.

  4. Sprinkle the remaining flour on the vegetables, add them to the kidney, and fry until browned.

  5. Pour in the stock and stir well for a few minutes.

  6. Add thyme, spices, and seasoning, then stir until boiling.

  7. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 3 to 4 hours, skimming occasionally.

  8. When the kidney is tender, strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  9. Remove half of the kidney pieces and place them in a tureen.

  10. Skim off any fat from the soup.

  11. Rub the remaining kidney and vegetables through a sieve and add the puree to the soup.

  12. Bring the soup almost to a boil, then add wine and more seasoning if needed.

  13. Pour the soup over the kidney pieces in the tureen and serve with croutons.

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

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

  2. Thyme + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + thymetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, wine, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, wine, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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