Skip to main content
Main

Pork Kidney, Stewed

Stewed pork kidneys simmered in butter, flour, wine, and gravy with parsley and shallot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pork Kidney, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Remove the skin from the kidneys and slice them into ¼‑inch thick pieces.

  2. Season the slices with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with parsley and shallot.

Cook and sauce

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and fry the kidney slices until lightly browned.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix well in the pan.

  3. Gradually add the gravy or water and the light wine, bringing the sauce to a boil.

  4. Remove the kidneys from the pan.

  5. Mix the chopped parsley into the sauce and let it boil for 2 more minutes.

  6. Pour the sauce over the kidneys and 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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Pork kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when cooked briefly over direct heat.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, promoting browning on the kidney slices and rich flavour.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth sauce when combined with the liquid.
Light wine
Adds acidity and aroma, deglazing the pan and balancing the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the kidney slices until lightly browned. Kidneys cook quickly and turn tough and rubbery if overcooked. Browning them briefly in hot butter gives flavour while keeping the interior tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, shallot, butter, flour, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, shallot, butter, flour, wine. 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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes