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Stewed Kidneys

A stew of sliced kidneys cooked with mushrooms, thyme, parsley, butter, stock, lemon, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the kidneys and remove all the fat.

  2. Cut the kidneys into slices about ¼ inch thick.

  3. Mince the eschalot, mushrooms, and thyme finely, using double the amount of minced parsley.

  4. Sprinkle the kidney slices with the herb mixture, salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne.

Make the stew

  1. Melt the butter in a clean stewpan.

  2. Fry the kidneys until browned on both sides.

  3. Thicken the mixture with 2 teaspoons of flour.

  4. Add the hot stock and lemon juice.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Skim the surface if necessary.

Serve

  1. Serve 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.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and savoury when briefly cooked.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, browning the kidneys and carrying flavour through the sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that clings to the kidneys.
Stock or gravy
Provides the liquid base that becomes the savoury sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the minced herb mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, meaty flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the kidneys until browned on both sides. Kidneys turn tough and rubbery if overcooked, so brief, hot frying browns the surface while keeping the inside tender before the sauce is added.

“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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