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Ox Kidneys

A cooked ox kidney dish simmered in butter, flour, salt, pepper, sugar, water, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ox Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the ox kidney into pieces about the size of a half crown and double the thickness, avoiding the tough white part.

  2. Heat the butter in a saucepan until very hot but not black.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the kidney pieces and stir with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes over a brisk fire.

  2. For each pound of kidney, add 2 tablespoons of flour, ½ teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of pepper, and 1 teaspoon of sugar.

  3. Moisten with ½ cup of water and ⅓ cup of sherry, adding browning sauce if desired.

  4. Let the mixture simmer gently for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  5. If the sauce is too thick, add a few drops more water.

  6. The sauce should be thick enough to adhere to the back of a spoon.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Ox kidney
Provides the main meat, which is cut into pieces that cook quickly and stay tender when seared.
Butter
Fat that is heated until very hot to sear the kidney pieces and add richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquids, giving it body that clings to a spoon.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce, balancing the richness of the kidney and butter.

The step that matters

Heating the butter until very hot but not black. Butter that is hot enough sears the kidney quickly, browning the surface and locking in flavour. If it burns, it turns bitter and dark, spoiling the sauce.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, sugar, sherry, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, sugar, sherry, sauce. 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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