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Kidney Soup

A hearty soup made with ox kidney, vegetables, butter, and seasonings, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Kidney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the kidney and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Scrape and wash the carrot.

  3. Peel and chop the turnip, potatoes, and onion.

  4. Dry the kidney pieces and dip them in flour.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the butter or dripping in a stew-pan until hot.

  2. Add the kidney and onion, and fry until nicely browned.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for two hours.

  4. Rub the kidney and vegetables through a sieve.

  5. Thicken with flour if necessary.

  6. Bring the soup to a boil again and serve.

  7. If preferred, serve with pieces of kidney in the soup.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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 once simmered and sieved.
Butter or dripping
Carries heat for browning the kidney and onion, adding richness to the soup.
Potatoes
Break down during simmering to give the soup body and a thicker texture.
Flour
Coats the kidney for browning and can be added to thicken the soup.
Onion
Browns in the fat to build sweet, savoury depth in the base of the soup.
Turnip
Adds earthy sweetness and body as it softens during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Frying the kidney and onion until nicely browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep savoury flavour that the long simmer cannot fully replace. Pieces must be dry and not crowded, or they steam instead of browning.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, butter, ketchup, turnip, flour, vinegar. 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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