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Scotch Kidney-collops

Kidney collops simmered with onions, parsley, and vinegar in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Scotch Kidney-collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the kidney into pieces the size of very small steaks.

  2. Soak the slices in warm water and dry them well.

  3. Dust the slices with flour.

Brown and simmer

  1. In a stew pan, brown the slices in fresh butter.

  2. Once browned, pour in hot water and add minced onions, salt, pepper, Cayenne, parsley, and vinegar.

  3. Cover the stew pan and let the collops simmer slowly for two hours or more.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long slow simmering.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown and help thicken the cooking liquid.
Butter
Browns the kidney slices, adding richness and a toasted flavour.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften into the simmering liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich meat.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly and covered. Kidney is tough unless cooked gently for a long time; a fast boil toughens the proteins and leaves the meat chewy. Keeping the pan covered at a low simmer holds moisture and lets the connective tissue break down slowly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, pepper, parsley, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, parsley, vinegar. 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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