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Beef Kidney

Beef kidney slices cooked in a seasoned gravy with wine, butter, and lemon, served hot with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 the kidney

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

  2. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, then sprinkle with parsley and eschalots.

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

Make the sauce

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

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

Serve

  1. Serve in 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
Provides the main meat, which browns in the pan and sets the dish's savoury character.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and white wine mixture into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Gravy
Supplies the liquid base and savoury depth of the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a glossy, rounded texture to the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the kidney and sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the kidney over high heat. Kidney is tender when cooked briefly over high heat until just browned. Overcooking toughens the meat and makes it rubbery, so the slices should be removed promptly once browned on both sides.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  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, lemon, butter. 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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