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Beef Kidneys Stewed

A stew of sliced beef kidneys cooked with onions, butter, pepper, sea salt, and rich gravy, thickened with flour and butter.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Slice the beef kidneys and place them in a stewpan.

  2. Add the butter and thinly sliced onions.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Stew for about 1 hour.

  5. Add the rich gravy extracted from the kidneys and stew for 5 more minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Strain the mixture and thicken the gravy with flour and butter, then bring to a boil.

  2. Serve the dish with the gravy.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender during the long, slow stew.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the onions and kidneys cook.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they stew, adding body and flavour to the gravy.
Rich gravy
Provides the liquid and savoury base that the dish is finished with.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the kidneys when served.

The step that matters

Stewing the kidneys for the full time. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery if cooked too hard or too briefly. A gentle, steady simmer over the stated time lets the connective tissue soften into a tender texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, 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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