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To Dress Beef Kidney

A stew of minced beef kidney cooked with butter, wine, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Dress Beef Kidney

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Dress Beef Kidney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Soak the kidney in cold water and dry it with a cloth.

  2. Cut the kidney into small pieces and mince it finely.

  3. Dust the minced kidney with flour.

Stew

  1. Heat butter in a stew pan over medium heat until it melts.

  2. Add the minced kidney and brown it in the butter.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper, then add boiling water.

  4. Pour in the champagne or other wine, or mushroom ketchup or walnut pickle.

  5. Cover the pan and let it stew until the kidney is tender.

Serve

  1. Serve hot in a covered dish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + champagnetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Beef kidney
Is the main ingredient, providing the meaty body of the stew.
Flour
Coats the minced kidney, helping it brown and thickening the cooking liquid.
Butter
Browns the kidney and adds richness to the stew.
Champagne or wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich kidney flavour.

The step that matters

Cover the pan and let it stew until the kidney is tender.. Kidney is tough and turns rubbery if cooked too hard or too fast. Gentle, covered simmering breaks down its connective tissue slowly and keeps the meat moist.

“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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