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Stewed Kidneys

A stew of beef kidneys simmered with water, salt, flour, butter, mustard, pepper, and optional sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Wash the beef kidney, remove all fat, and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Place the kidney in a pot with ½ cup of water and 1¼ teaspoons of salt.

  3. Cook hard for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Pour off the water.

Simmer and finish

  1. Cover the pot and let it simmer for several hours.

  2. Ten minutes before serving, make a thickening with 2 tablespoons of browned flour and cold water.

  3. Stir the thickening into the kidney along with 1 tablespoon of butter, salt, pepper, a pinch of mustard, and sherry wine if desired.

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 + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

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 body of the stew, becoming tender during long, gentle simmering.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, slightly nutty gravy when stirred in.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth finish to the thickened sauce.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the gravy when included.

The step that matters

Simmering for several hours. Kidney is tough muscle tissue, and long, gentle simmering breaks down its connective tissue so it becomes tender. Cooking too hard can toughen the meat, so keep the pot at a gentle simmer.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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