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Kidneys sautéed and served with a champagne or port wine sauce, fresh herbs, shallots, and sautéed onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Champagne and port wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Fry and plate the kidneys

  1. Fry the kidneys for 6 minutes, then remove them.

  2. Place them in a dish garnished with fried bread pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the sauce and pour it over the kidneys.

  2. Optionally add champagne or claret to the sauce.

  3. Stir in minced shallots and fresh herbs.

Prepare the onions

  1. Sauté small onions in fresh butter until tender.

  2. Add the sautéed onions to the dish before serving.

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. Champagne + port winetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  3. Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Champagne + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Main protein; a brief, hot fry gives a browned surface and a tender interior.
Champagne or claret
Adds acidity and wine aroma to the sauce, balancing its richness.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion aroma that deepens as the sauce cooks.
Small onions
Add sweetness and soft texture once sautéed until tender.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, and helps the onions brown as they sauté.

The step that matters

Frying the kidneys for 6 minutes. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, because their proteins tighten under prolonged high heat. Frying them briefly and removing them promptly keeps the inside tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (champagne, port wine, shallot, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against champagne, port wine, shallot, 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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