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Stewed Kidney

A stew made from diced kidneys, butter, flour, and seasonings, simmered in hot water until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare the kidney

  1. Cut the kidney into small pieces, about the size of a cherry, and rinse under cold water in a colander, then let the pieces drain.

  2. Place a piece of butter (about the size of a walnut) in a pot.

  3. Sprinkle flour on the bottom of the pot and stir with a spoon until brown.

  4. Sprinkle flour on the kidney in the colander and mix well.

  5. Add the kidney to the pot, stirring until well mixed.

Stew and thicken

  1. Pour in hot water until it is two inches deep and bring to a boil.

  2. Boil for three hours to make the kidney tender.

  3. Take another piece of butter the same size, mix with 2 tablespoons of flour, salt, and pepper to form a paste.

  4. Stir the paste into the kidney a little at a time and let it boil for an additional fifteen minutes, watching to prevent burning.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. 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
Forms the main body of the stew and becomes tender through long simmering.
Flour
Browns in the butter and thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour brown and carry flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour paste into the kidney. Adding the flour paste all at once can form lumps that stay dry. Adding it a little at a time while stirring lets the starch disperse and thicken the liquid smoothly, and keeping the pot stirred prevents the flour on the bottom from scorching during the long boil.

“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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