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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 and sprinkle with flour.

  2. Melt the butter in a pot, add the kidneys, and brown them.

Simmer the soup

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

  2. Skim the surface carefully and let it simmer slowly for three hours.

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

  4. Pour the mixture into the soup, stir well, and cook slowly for an additional 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

Flour
Coats the kidney slices, helping them brown and thickening the soup slightly.
Ground rice
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a fuller body.
Butter
Fats the pot and helps the kidneys brown well.
Kidneys
Provide the main meaty flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Skim the surface carefully. Foam and fine impurities rise to the surface as the water heats and simmers. 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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