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Kidneys with Sherry

Kidneys cooked in a sauce of butter, flour, stock, Worcestershire sauce, catsup, and sherry, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Kidneys with Sherry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Drain the kidneys and cut them into small pieces.

  2. Cover the kidneys with cold water and heat gently, ensuring the water does not boil.

  3. Repeat this process three times.

Make the sauce

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until browned.

  2. Gradually add the boiling stock or water, stirring with a wooden spoon until it boils for 3 minutes.

  3. Add Worcestershire sauce, catsup, salt, pepper, and the kidneys. Stir until the kidneys are heated through.

  4. Remove from heat, stir in the sherry, and serve garnished with chopped parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Kidneys
Provide the main meat, which is gently heated in water to tenderize and mild the flavor.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and, when browned with the flour, a nutty flavor to the sauce.
Sherry
Adds a sweet, aromatic, slightly acidic note to the finished sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth that seasons the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the boiling stock. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour and butter mixture smooth, so lumps do not form. Boiling the sauce for 3 minutes fully cooks the flour, so it thickens properly and loses its raw taste.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sauce, 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.

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