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Stewed Kidneys

A dish of kidneys stewed with onion, butter, stock, and lemon, served on toast or fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Split the kidneys, trim off the fat and skin, and cut each kidney into 3 or 4 pieces.

  2. Heat the butter in a skillet, add the kidneys and onion.

  3. Pour in the stock and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Cover and cook for about 8 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lemon juice and serve the kidneys on toast or fried bread.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender with a short covered simmer in liquid.
Consomme or stock
Supplies the cooking liquid that gently moistens and flavours the kidneys as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the onion and kidneys brown lightly in the pan.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens in the butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury flavour of the kidneys.

The step that matters

Cover and cook for about 8 minutes. Cooking kidneys too long makes them tough and rubbery, because the proteins tighten with prolonged heat. A short, covered cook keeps them tender and juicy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, lemon. 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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