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Beef Kidney

Beef kidney slices sautéed and simmered in a gravy of flour, wine, and butter, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Beef Kidney

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beef Kidney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the kidney thinly, removing the skin and fat.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, grated nutmeg, and minced parsley (or parsley and eschalots).

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the slices over high heat until browned on both sides.

  2. Stir in the flour, then gradually add the gravy and white wine.

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil, then add the butter and lemon juice.

  4. Pour the mixture into a hot dish garnished with fried 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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, cooked quickly to stay tender.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and wine mixture into a smooth sauce.
Gravy
Provides the liquid base and savoury depth of the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich meat.
Butter
Adds fat and a silky finish to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the slices over high heat until browned on both sides. Searing over high heat browns the surface quickly, building flavour through the Maillard reaction. Overcooking the thin slices makes kidney tough and rubbery, so brief, hot cooking matters.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, parsley, flour, white wine, butter, lemon. 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.

More beef kidney recipes

Stew 16Fried 12in Gravy 8Stewed 5French 3 See all 39 →

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