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Stewed Kidneys

A stew of sliced kidneys cooked in brown gravy with butter, shallot, lemon juice, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Skin and trim the kidneys, removing the fat.

  2. Cut the kidneys into thin slices.

  3. Soak the slices in cold water for 2 minutes.

  4. Dry the slices.

  5. Dust the kidneys with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and parsley.

  6. Dredge the kidneys in flour.

Cook and stew

  1. Fry the kidneys until browned.

  2. Place the kidneys in a stew pot with brown gravy, butter, and shallot.

  3. Stew for 1 hour.

  4. Add lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with fried bread sippets.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 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

Kidneys
Main protein; slow stewing in gravy makes the meat tender.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown well and help thicken the gravy.
Brown gravy
Provides the liquid and savoury body in which the kidneys stew.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour to the frying and the stew.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury flavour of the stew.

The step that matters

Fry the kidneys until browned. Dry slices floured and fried in fat develop browning through the Maillard reaction, which adds deep savoury flavour. Crowding the pan or leaving the slices wet causes steaming instead, leaving them pale and bland.

“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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