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Stewed Kidneys

A stew of sheep kidneys cooked with brown butter, flour, ketchup, pepper, onions, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Divide the sheep's kidneys down the middle.

  2. Heat the brown butter in a pan.

  3. Dust the kidneys with flour and place them in the pan, cut side down.

  4. Brown the kidneys on both sides.

Stew and season

  1. Pour off most of the butter, then add a little warm water.

  2. Thicken the sauce with flour and stew until the kidneys are tender.

  3. Season with pepper, ketchup, and shredded onions.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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's kidneys
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow stewing.
Flour
Coats the kidneys to aid browning and thickens the sauce as it stews.
Brown butter
Adds fat for browning the kidneys and a nutty, aromatic flavour.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the kidneys. Searing the floured cut side in hot fat builds a browned crust through the Maillard reaction, which adds flavour to the sauce. Pale, under-browned kidneys will taste flat once stewed.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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