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Kidney Soup

A soup made with diced sheep kidneys, lean beef, brown stock, rice, onion, parsley, butter, and served with croutons of bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Kidney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the kidneys and beef into small dice.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Add chopped onion and parsley, and sauté in butter for 10 minutes.

  2. Pour off excess grease, add stock and rice, and boil until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the mixture, pound the meat and rice in a mortar, then pass through a fine sieve.

  2. Stir the mixture back into the stock, heat without boiling, and serve with croutons of bread.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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 rich, meaty flavour and body of the soup.
Lean beef
Adds meaty substance and flavour, and helps give the soup body after pounding.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the meats.
Rice
Softens as it cooks and, once pounded and sieved, thickens the soup smoothly.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the onion and parsley and adds richness when sautéed.

The step that matters

Heat without boiling. Boiling the soup after the meat and rice are stirred in can cause it to separate, toughen the meat and dull its smooth texture. Gentle heat keeps it silky.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, rice, onion, butter, bread, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rice, onion, butter, bread, 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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