Skip to main content
Main

Rognons a LA Terrapin

Kidneys cooked with butter, flour, milk, egg yolk, sherry, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Rognons a LA Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Prepare the kidney as for stewing and scald it three times.

  2. Cut the kidney into small slices or pieces.

  3. Season the kidney slices with salt and pepper.

  4. Heat the seasoned kidney slices thoroughly.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, stir together the flour and butter over medium heat without browning.

  2. Blend the mixture with the boiling milk and stir for 3 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Add the egg yolk, sherry, and parsley.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce when stirred in off the heat.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a distinctive aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat and can scramble if the sauce is still boiling. Removing the pan from the heat before adding it keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, flour, milk, pepper, sherry):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, milk, pepper, sherry. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes