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Kidney Soup

A soup made with beef kidney, butter, rice flour, water, tomato catsup, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Kidney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat and brown the kidney pieces in a pot.

  2. In a bowl, mix the rice flour with a little water to form a paste.

Simmer

  1. Add the cold water, tomato catsup, Worcestershire sauce, and the flour paste to the pot.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, then bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 1½ hours.

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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef kidney
Provides the main meat and savory, rich flavor of the soup.
Butter
Carries fat for browning the kidney pieces, adding richness and flavor.
Rice flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich broth.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the savory broth.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and a tangy, fermented note to the broth.

The step that matters

Make the flour paste smooth before adding it. Flour clumps if added dry or undispersed to liquid. Mixing it with a little cold water first lets the starch hydrate evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly rather than lumpily.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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