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Beef Kidney

Fried slices of beef kidney served with a mushroom ketchup gravy.

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

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beef Kidney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Cut the kidney into thin slices.

  2. Flour the slices and fry them until nicely browned.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove excess fat from the pan and add butter.

  2. Pour in boiling water, then add pepper, salt, and mushroom ketchup.

  3. Let the gravy boil briefly, then pour it over the kidney and serve.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Forms the main meat, becoming tender when sliced thin and fried.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown well and help thicken the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the gravy after the excess fat is removed.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds a savoury, umami depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the flour-coated slices until nicely browned. Browning through the flour coating creates flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale slices taste flat, while overcooked ones turn tough and dry, so watch colour and timing closely.

“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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