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Stewed Kidneys

A stew of sheep kidneys cooked with butter, flour, stock, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Halve the kidneys.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Add the flour and fry until brown.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour in the stock, then add parsley, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the kidneys.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew slowly for one hour.

  2. Serve the kidneys on a hot dish and pour the gravy over them.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Sheep kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender during slow stewing.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy once browned and mixed with liquid.
Stock
Provides the liquid that becomes the gravy and moistens the kidneys.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, slightly acidic depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the flour until brown. Browning the flour in butter develops a nutty flavour and colour in the gravy. Stirring constantly prevents scorching, which would give a bitter taste.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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