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Kidney Soup

A soup made from sliced kidneys, butter, flour, ground rice, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom sauce, and water, simmered for hours.

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

  1. Cut the kidneys into thin slices.

  2. Sprinkle the sliced kidneys with flour.

  3. Melt the butter in a pot.

  4. Add the kidneys to the pot.

  5. Brown the kidneys.

Make the soup

  1. Pour in the cold water.

  2. Stir until it boils.

  3. Skim the surface carefully.

  4. Allow the soup to simmer slowly for three hours.

  5. In a bowl, mix the ground rice with Worcestershire sauce and mushroom sauce.

  6. Pour the mixture into the soup and stir well.

  7. Cook slowly for ten minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup 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, giving the soup its savory flavor and body.
Flour
Coats the kidneys and, cooked with butter, helps thicken the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the kidneys for deeper flavor.
Ground rice
Adds starch that thickens the soup as it cooks.
Mushroom sauce
Adds savory, umami depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface carefully. Foam and scum rise as the liquid heats. Removing them keeps the broth clear and free of bitter or off flavors.

“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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