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Stewed Ox Kidney

A stew of ox kidney cooked slowly with onions, dripping, flour, vinegar, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper 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 Ox Kidney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the kidney, remove the core, and cut it into neat pieces.

  2. Peel and slice the onions.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the dripping in a saucepan until it smokes.

  2. Add the onions and fry until light brown.

  3. Sprinkle in the flour.

  4. Gradually stir in the water.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Add the vinegar, salt, and pepper.

Stew

  1. Add the kidney pieces.

  2. Cover with a lid and simmer slowly for two hours.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox kidney
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Onions
Fry to light brown, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Dripping
Fat for frying the onions, carrying flavour and helping them brown.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it combines with the fat and water.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich sauce and meat.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly with the lid on. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue in the kidney break down slowly, leaving it tender. Boiling hard toughens and firms the meat, and the lid keeps the liquid from reducing too quickly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, vinegar, 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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