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Kidney Saute

Sautéed kidneys with butter, shallot, parsley, mushrooms, water, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Kidney Saute

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove fat and skin from the kidneys and cut them in half.

  2. Trim away any gristly parts from the center.

  3. Heat the butter in a small saucepan.

Sauté

  1. Place the kidneys cut side down in the pan.

  2. Fry the kidneys for 2 minutes.

  3. Turn the kidneys.

  4. Fry the kidneys for another 2 minutes.

  5. Remove the kidneys without spilling the collected gravy.

Finish and rest

  1. Add the remaining ingredients to the butter.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Remove the pan from heat.

  4. Place the kidneys cut side up in the pan to retain the gravy.

  5. Cover the pan.

  6. Let it sit on gentle heat for 6 to 8 minutes.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's kidneys
Provide the main meat, whose texture turns tender and firm when quickly seared and then gently finished.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the kidneys and gravy.
Shallot
Adds mild sweetness and aroma to the pan sauce as it softens in the butter.
Mushroom
Adds earthy savoriness and moisture that thickens and deepens the collected gravy.

The step that matters

Remove the kidneys without spilling the collected gravy. The juices pooling in the pan carry much of the flavor. Lifting the kidneys carefully keeps this gravy, which is then returned to the dish, instead of losing it to the pan or counter.

“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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