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Stewed Ox Kidney

A stew of sliced ox kidney cooked with butter, parsley, pepper, salt, flour, vinegar, and water, served with potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Charles Elme Francatelli · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Stewed Ox Kidney

six persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Cut up the kidney into thin slices.

  2. Fry the slices brown with a bit of butter or fat in a frying pan over a brisk fire.

Stew

  1. Season with chopped parsley, shallot, pepper, and salt.

  2. Shake in a good tablespoonful of flour.

  3. Add a few drops of vinegar and nearly half a pint of water.

  4. Stir the whole on the fire while it boils very gently for a quarter of an hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with a dish of well-boiled or baked potatoes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

10Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
2 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Charles Elme Francatelli. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox kidney (in the method)
Provides the main meat, which browns in the pan and becomes tender when stewed slowly.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy as it simmers.
Butter or fat (in the method)
Carries the heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the slices.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, savoury stew.

The step that matters

Frying the slices brown. Searing over a brisk fire creates browned surface flavour through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or letting the meat steam leaves it grey and less flavourful.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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