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Stewed Kidney

A simple stew of kidney pieces cooked in butter with flour, salt, pepper, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Kidney

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over high heat.

  2. Add the kidney pieces and stir for 3 minutes.

  3. Sprinkle in the flour, salt, pepper, and sugar, and mix well.

  4. Pour in the water and bring to a simmer.

  5. Cook gently for 5 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

Kidney
Provides the main meat and its savory flavor and firm, chewy texture.
Butter
Carries the cooking of the kidney and adds richness and a rounded flavor to the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce that clings to the kidney pieces.

The step that matters

Sprinkle in the flour, salt, pepper, and sugar, and mix well.. Flour must be fully mixed into the hot fat and kidney so it coats the pieces evenly. Stirring it in well prevents lumps and lets the flour thicken the water smoothly when it is added.

“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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