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Stewed Kidney

A stew of kidneys simmered in broth with onion, pepper, salt, butter, and served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Kidney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Boil the kidneys the night before until very tender.

  2. In the morning, boil the kidneys for a few moments.

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken the broth with flour and water.

  2. Add the finely chopped onion, pepper, salt, and a lump of butter.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over well-buttered toasted bread.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

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

Kidneys
Long boiling makes the meat very tender, so it can be cooked through in the stew.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a stew-like sauce that clings to the bread.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, savoury flavour to the sauce and bread.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the sauce, giving the dish a base to hold the stew.

The step that matters

Boil the kidneys the night before until very tender.. Kidney is tough and needs long, gentle cooking to become tender. Cooking it fully the night before gives it time to soften before the final brief boil.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, butter, bread. 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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