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Figs — Continued

A dish of pig's kidneys cooked in wine, butter, flour, chives, parsley, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Figs — Continued

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pig's kidneys and soak them in water for a few minutes.

  2. Remove the kidneys, dry them, and slice them.

Cook and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sliced kidneys, white wine, butter, flour, chives, parsley, and pepper.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring continuously for 15 minutes without boiling.

  3. Serve on a dish.

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

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

  2. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Flour + chivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Chive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig's kidneys
Main protein, becoming tender and savoury as they cook gently in the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and its liquid helps form the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded texture.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce as it cooks with the butter and wine.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat without boiling. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the flour-thickened sauce smooth and stop the kidneys from toughening. Boiling can cause the sauce to break and the meat to become firm and rubbery.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Chivethe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, butter, flour, parsley, pepper. 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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