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Kidney Soup

A soup made from ox kidney, carrots, turnip, onion, and stock, thickened with flour and flavored with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 base

  1. Cut the kidney into pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the kidney and fry gently.

  4. Add the chopped vegetables.

  5. Cook for 5 minutes.

  6. Pour in the hot stock.

  7. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

Strain and finish

  1. Remove the kidney.

  2. Chop it finely.

  3. Pass the soup through a wire sieve.

  4. Return it to the saucepan.

  5. Add the chopped kidney back to the soup.

  6. Mix the flour with the coloring, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and salt until smooth.

  7. Pour the mixture into the boiling soup.

  8. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox kidney
Provides the main meat flavour and body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stock as they soften during slow cooking.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body to the stock as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps fry the kidney and onion gently.

The step that matters

Boil the flour mixture into the soup. Flour must be fully mixed smooth before it goes in, then boiled while stirring constantly. Stirring prevents lumps, and boiling cooks out the raw starch taste and thickens the soup evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, flour, turnip, ketchup, pepper, sauce, 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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