Skip to main content
Main

Sheep's Kidneys, Stewed

Stewed sheep kidneys in butter, flour, sherry, parsley, shallot, mushrooms, lemon juice, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Sheep's Kidneys, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and halve the sheep's kidneys, then cut them into ¼‑inch thick slices.

Cook

  1. Fry the slices in butter until lightly browned.

  2. Dredge the kidneys with flour.

  3. Pour in the sherry and add parsley, shallot, mushrooms, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

  4. Stir the mixture over the heat for 5‑6 minutes.

  5. Serve very 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 + 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's kidneys
Provide the meat, which is the main substance of the dish.
Butter
Browns the kidney slices and adds richness to the pan.
Flour
Coats the kidneys and thickens the pan juices into a light sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce as it simmers with the kidneys.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stewed mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over the heat for 5‑6 minutes. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery if overcooked, so keep the heat moderate and the timing short. Flour needs enough gentle heat and stirring to cook out its raw taste and thicken the sauce smoothly.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes