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Stewed Kidneys

Stewed ox kidney simmered with stock, sauces, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Wash the kidney well and cut it into thin slices.

  2. Roll the slices in flour, salt, and pepper.

Brown and stew

  1. Brown the kidney quickly in butter over medium heat.

  2. Transfer the kidney to a stewpan, add stock and sauces, and simmer slowly for 1.5 hours.

  3. Mix rice flour with a little cold stock or water, then add to the stew and cook for a few more 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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox kidney
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown, and thickens the stock into a gravy.
Rice flour
Added at the end to thicken the stew further without making it cloudy.
Butter
Carries heat for quick browning and adds richness to the sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth and umami to the stewed gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 1.5 hours. Kidney is tough muscle meat, and a long, gentle simmer breaks down its connective tissue. Boiling hard instead toughens the proteins and leaves it chewy.

“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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