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Beef Kidneys À LA Fifth Avenue with Wine Sauce

A dish of sliced beef kidneys cooked with onions, butter, flour, and red wine, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Kidneys À LA Fifth Avenue with Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the membranes from the kidneys and cut them into slices.

Make the sauce

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and sauté the chopped onion until golden.

  2. Add the kidney slices and cook until browned.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the mixture and stir well.

  4. Pour in the red wine, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Bake

  1. Transfer to a baking dish and bake for 20 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Beef + red winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 kidneys
Provide the main meat, which browns and becomes tender when cooked briefly.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce while simmering.
Butter
Carries the onion's browning and adds richness to the pan.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the kidney slices. Kidney that is overcooked turns tough and rubbery, so brown it quickly over steady heat. Browning builds flavour, but the slices finish cooking in the oven and the wine sauce, so stop before they are fully firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, red wine, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, red wine, butter, flour, pepper. 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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