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Veal Kidneys

Veal kidneys sautéed with butter, flour, sherry, broth, mushrooms, and seasonings, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills from the kidneys and slice them thinly.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat until it begins to brown.

Cook

  1. Add the kidneys and stir with a wooden spoon until firm.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and stir to combine.

  3. Pour in the sherry and broth, then add the mushrooms.

  4. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.

  5. Season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and lemon juice.

  6. If the mixture is too thick, add more broth.

Serve

  1. Serve on a dish or in a fried croustade 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal kidneys
Provide the main meat, which firms when seared and stirred in butter.
Butter
Carries flavour and browns slightly, adding richness to the pan.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a fortified wine aroma to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that becomes part of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the kidneys until firm. Kidney is delicate, and overcooking it makes it tough and rubbery. Stirring only until firm keeps it tender through the later simmer.

“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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