Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Kidneys

A stew of veal or lamb kidneys cooked with butter, mushrooms, madeira, mustard, parsley, and served with croutons.

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

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Boil the kidneys in water for 2 minutes, then drain and chill in cold water for 2 minutes.

  2. Remove the sinews and cut the kidneys into small pieces or slices.

Make the stew

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and add the kidneys, salt, and pepper. Stew for 5 minutes.

  2. Prepare fresh mushrooms in butter and mix them with the kidneys.

  3. Add the madeira, mustard, and chopped parsley to the mixture.

  4. Thicken the sauce slightly with cornstarch.

Serve

  1. Serve in a deep dish, garnished with croutons.

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

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Form the dish's main body and provide its tender, meaty texture.
Fresh butter
Enriches the stew with fat and carries flavour through the dish.
Fresh mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury, earthy depth to the stew.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the sauce as it reduces.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the kidneys.

The step that matters

Stew the kidneys gently in butter. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, so a short, gentle stew over moderate heat keeps them tender.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper, mushroom, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, mushroom, parsley. 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.

More stewed kidneys recipes

with Wine 3 See all 43 →

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes