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Kidney Soup

A savory soup made with sliced kidneys, butter, flour, ground rice, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom sauce, and simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Kidney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Cut the kidneys into thin slices.

  2. Sprinkle the sliced kidneys with flour.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a pot.

  2. Add the kidneys to the pot and brown them.

  3. Pour in the cold water and stir until it boils.

  4. Skim the surface carefully.

  5. Allow the soup to simmer slowly for 3 hours.

  6. In a bowl, mix the ground rice with the Worcestershire and mushroom sauces.

  7. Pour the mixture into the soup.

  8. Stir well and bring to a boil.

  9. Cook slowly for 10 minutes.

  10. Serve without the meat.

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

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

  2. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 and rich flavour that the broth is built around.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the kidneys and a rich, savoury flavour.
Flour
Coats the kidney slices and helps thicken the soup as it cooks.
Ground rice
Thickens the soup and gives it a smoother, heavier body.

The step that matters

Skim the surface carefully. Foam and fat rising as the water heats can cloud the broth and taste greasy. Removing them early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured during the long 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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