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Kidney Irish Stew

A stew of ox kidney, onions, potatoes, and stock, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Kidney Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ox kidney into 1.5-inch square pieces, removing the hard core.

  2. Season the kidney with salt and pepper.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, combine the kidney, minced onion, and water or stock.

  2. Bring the liquid to a boil and carefully remove any scum.

  3. Add the peeled potatoes to the pan and simmer gently until cooked but unbroken.

Serve

  1. Place the kidney in the center of a dish.

  2. Arrange the potatoes around it.

  3. Pour the gravy over everything.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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 after simmering in the liquid.
Potatoes
Absorb the savoury cooking liquid and add starchy body to the stew.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the liquid.
Water or stock
Forms the cooking liquid that becomes the gravy and moistens the dish.

The step that matters

Removing the scum after boiling. Scum rising during the first boil contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the gravy and spoil its flavour if left in the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, potato. 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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