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Rognons a LA Terrapin

A French dish of stewed kidney in butter, flour, milk, sherry, egg yolk, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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.

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, boiling for 3 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the kidney into small slices or pieces, season with salt and pepper, and stir until heated through.

  2. Remove from heat, add the yolk of the egg, sherry, and parsley, and 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 milk into a smooth sauce with the butter.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flour so it thickens without lumps.
Egg
Yolk enriches and thickens the sauce as it is added off the heat.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the flour thickens.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished 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 heat before adding the yolk 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.

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