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Kidney Soup

A hearty soup made with diced kidney, onion, stock, macaroni, and seasonings, finished with lemon juice and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Kidney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Skin the kidney, remove the fat, and cut it into dice.

  2. Dredge the kidney pieces with flour, salt, and pepper.

Make the soup

  1. Brown the kidney and onion in a pot with the butter or dripping over medium heat.

  2. Add the stock, bring to a gentle boil, skim well, and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  3. Boil the macaroni in salted water, then add it to the pot along with the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper to taste.

  4. Add a little lemon juice and chopped parsley.

  5. Thicken with a mixture of 1 ounce each of butter and flour fried until brown.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Kidney
Forms the meaty body of the soup and gives it its rich, savory flavor.
Flour
Coats the kidney for browning and, fried with butter, thickens the soup.
Onion
Softens and browns in the fat, adding sweetness and aroma to the base.
Stock
Provides the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.
Butter or dripping
Carries the browning of the kidney and onion and adds richness.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds acidity and savory depth to the soup.

The step that matters

Skim well after the boil. Bringing the stock to a gentle boil releases foam and impurities that rise to the surface. Skimming them keeps the soup clear and free of bitter or off flavors during the long simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, flour, ketchup, sauce, lemon, pepper, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, flour, ketchup, sauce, lemon, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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