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Stewed Kidneys

Stewed Kidneys is a dish of sheep kidneys cooked with flour, butter, stock, mushrooms, onion, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Skin the kidneys, split them in two, remove the core, wash, and dry.

  2. Roll the kidneys in flour and fry quickly in butter.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the kidneys in a pan with hot stock, add mushrooms, onion, and seasoning.

  2. Simmer for half an hour.

  3. Blend the flour with a little cold water or stock.

  4. Pour the hot stock over the mixture, return to the pan, and boil thoroughly.

  5. Add sherry, dish the kidneys, strain the gravy over, and garnish with small potato balls or boiled macaroni.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's kidneys
The main ingredient, which becomes tender with gentle simmering in liquid.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated in liquid.
Butter
Fat for frying the kidneys, adding richness and browning on the surface.
Onion
Adds aroma and gentle sweetness as it cooks in the stock.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy depth to the stewing liquid.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Blending the flour with cold liquid before adding hot stock. Flour starch clumps if dropped into hot liquid directly. Blending it first with cold water or stock lets the particles separate, so the hot stock thickens the gravy smoothly once it is boiled.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sherry, butter, mushroom, clove, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sherry, butter, mushroom, clove, pepper. 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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