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Kidney Ragout

A stew of beef kidneys simmered with tomatoes, onion, cayenne pepper, and parsley, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Kidney Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the kidneys into ½ inch pieces and coat them with flour.

  2. Heat boiling lard in a pan and fry the kidneys until browned.

Make the ragout

  1. Stew the scalded tomatoes in their own juice for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the browned kidneys to the tomatoes along with the chopped onion, cayenne pepper, and parsley.

  3. Simmer the mixture over low heat for 2 hours, adding hot water if the stew is too thick.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with boiled rice.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef kidneys
Form the main meat body of the stew, becoming tender with long gentle simmering.
Flour
Coats the kidney pieces so they brown and help thicken the sauce.
Tomatoes
Provide the liquid base and acidity that build the stew's body and flavor.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth as it softens into the stew.

The step that matters

Simmering the mixture over low heat. Kidney is tough, so a long, gentle simmer at low heat is needed to tenderize it. Too much heat can toughen the meat and reduce the sauce unevenly, so check thickness and add hot water as needed.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, tomato, pepper, parsley, rice. 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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