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Stewed Kidneys

A stew of sheep kidneys cooked with butter, flour, stock, ketchup, shallot, and served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the kidneys and cut them in halves.

Cook

  1. Fry the kidneys in the butter for five minutes.

  2. Add flour, pepper, salt, ketchup, chopped shallot, and stock.

  3. Simmer for twenty minutes.

  4. Just before serving, add the parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve the fried slices of bread arranged around the dish.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's kidneys
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender with gentle simmering.
Butter
Browns the kidneys during frying and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that the kidneys simmer in.
Shallot
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and savoury depth to the sauce.
Ketchup
Contributes sweetness and acidity that rounds out the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering with flour. Flour must be cooked in the liquid for a while so its starch swells fully and the sauce thickens smoothly without a raw, floury taste. Keep the heat gentle so the kidneys stay tender rather than toughening.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

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