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Kidney Stew

A hearty stew of kidney, onions, potatoes, carrots, and flour for thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Kidney Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Place kidney pieces in a pot filled with cold water and bring to a boil.

  2. Remove kidney, rinse thoroughly in a colander with cold water.

  3. Place kidneys in a pot covered with hot water.

Make the stew

  1. Add chopped onions, season with pepper and coarse sea salt, and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Add chopped potatoes and carrots to the stew and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Add flour for thickening and simmer for 10 minutes.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Kidney
Forms the main meat of the stew and gives it a firm, chewy texture after long boiling.
Onions
Soften during boiling and add sweetness and savory depth to the broth.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, adding body and starch to the stew.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the stew.
Flour
Its starch swells in the simmering liquid, thickening the stew.

The step that matters

Add flour for thickening and simmer for 10 minutes. Flour should be fully mixed into the hot liquid so it does not clump. Simmering lets the starch swell and thicken the stew and cooks out the raw flour taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, potato, carrot, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, potato, carrot, flour. 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.

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