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A dish of fried kidneys topped with a boiled sauce, optionally flavored with champagne or claret, and garnished with shallots and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Cook the kidneys

  1. Fry the kidneys for 6 minutes.

  2. Remove the kidneys and place them in a dish.

Make the sauce and serve

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

  2. Optionally, add champagne or claret to the sauce.

  3. Sprinkle minced shallots and fresh herbs over the kidneys.

  4. For variation, add small shallots stewed in butter after dishing.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Champagne + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together209 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
The main protein, which gives the dish its substance and texture when fried.
Champagne or claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour to the sauce, and boiling reduces its alcohol and concentrates its taste.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aroma and savoury flavour to the finished dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the shallots brown and soften when stewed.

The step that matters

Fry the kidneys for 6 minutes. Kidney tissue toughens quickly with prolonged high heat. Frying for the stated time and then removing them from the pan keeps them tender before they are dished and covered with sauce.

“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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