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Beef Kidneys

A stew of beef kidneys cooked with butter, wine, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Soak the kidney in cold water and dry it with a cloth.

  2. Cut the kidney into small pieces and mince it finely, then dust with flour.

Brown and stew

  1. Heat the butter in a stewpan over medium heat until it melts.

  2. Add the minced kidneys to the pan and brown them in the butter.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and cayenne, then pour in the boiling water.

  4. Add the champagne (or wine) and mushroom ketchup (or walnut pickle).

  5. Cover the pan and let it stew until the kidney is tender.

Serve

  1. Serve hot in a covered dish.

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 + 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Flour
Dusting helps the kidney pieces brown and thickens the stewing liquid.
Butter
Fat for browning the kidney and adds rich flavour.
Champagne or wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the savoury stew.
Mushroom ketchup or walnut pickle
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the stew.

The step that matters

Stewing until tender. Kidney is firm and can turn tough if cooked too hard or too fast. Gentle, covered simmering gives the connective tissue time to soften, so the kidney becomes tender rather than chewy.

“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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