Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Beef Kidney
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and fry
Cut the kidney into thin slices.
Flour the slices and fry them until nicely browned.
Remove excess fat from the pan and add a small piece of butter.
Make the gravy and serve
Pour in ½ cup of boiling water, then add pepper, coarse sea salt, and 1 tablespoon of mushroom ketchup.
Let the gravy boil briefly, then pour it over the kidney and serve.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,232 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Beef kidney
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when sliced thin and cooked briefly.
- Flour
- Coats the slices so they brown well and help thicken the gravy.
- Butter
- Adds fat for frying and richness to the pan juices.
- Mushroom ketchup
- Adds savoury depth and umami to the gravy.
The step that matters
Frying the floured slices until nicely browned. Browning through the flour coating builds flavour through the Maillard reaction. Overcrowding or low heat makes the slices steam and turn grey instead, and the gravy then tastes flat.
“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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