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Kidneys with Mushroom Catsup

Kidneys sautéed and served in a mushroom catsup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Kidneys with Mushroom Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Cut the beef kidney into very thin slices and dust with flour.

  2. Fry the slices in a pan until light brown.

  3. Remove the kidney from the pan and pour off the fat.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Add butter, boiling water, salt, pepper, and mushroom catsup to the pan.

  2. Boil the gravy once, then pour it over the kidney and serve.

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
Forms the main body of the dish; thin slices cook quickly and stay tender.
Flour
Dusted on the slices, it helps them brown in the pan and thickens the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy, giving it a smooth, rounded flavour.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the slices until light brown. Frying until light brown develops savoury browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Overcooking the thin slices toughens the kidney, so they should be removed once browned.

“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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