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Kidney Stew

A stew made from beef kidney, onion, sage, nutmeg, and seasonings, served hot with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 642 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Kidney Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Remove all fat from the beef kidney and cut it into slices.

  2. Soak the kidney slices in cold water with 1 teaspoon of salt for 15 minutes.

  3. Wipe the kidney slices dry and place them in a pot with 3 ½ cups of cold water.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 hours.

  2. Half an hour before it is done, add the sliced onion, sage, nutmeg, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Serve hot with mashed potatoes.

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. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef kidney
Is the main protein, becoming tender through long simmering in water.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory flavor as it softens in the stew.
Sage
Contributes an earthy, aromatic herb flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Soaking the kidney slices. Soaking in salted cold water helps draw out residual blood and strong odor from the kidney, giving a cleaner flavor. Drying the slices before simmering keeps the surface from steaming and seasoning in an uneven way.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sage, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sage, nutmeg, 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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