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Ox Kidney Stewed

A stew of sliced ox kidney cooked with onion, butter, flour, mustard, ketchup, sugar, pepper, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox Kidney Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidney

  1. Wash the ox kidney well and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Remove all the fat and cut the kidney into thin slices.

Brown and thicken

  1. In a small saucepan, heat the butter until hot and brown.

  2. Chop the onion and fry it slightly in the butter.

  3. Add the kidney slices and fry them well.

  4. Gradually sprinkle in the flour and stir until mixed with the moisture.

  5. Add salt, pepper, mustard, sugar, and ketchup, stirring well.

  6. Cook until the mixture is dry and paste-like.

Stew and serve

  1. Add 1½ cups of water and stir until it boils.

  2. Cover and let it stew gently for 1½ hours.

  3. Serve with toasted 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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Ox kidney
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long gentle stewing.
Flour
Absorbs moisture from the pan and thickens the mixture into a paste-like texture.
Butter
Fats the pan for frying and adds richness and browned flavour to the onion and kidney.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the butter.
Mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the kidney.
Ketchup
Adds acidity and tomato sweetness that deepens the sauce's colour and flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture is dry and paste-like. Frying the flour with the meat juices and fat cooks out raw starch taste and builds a thick base. If the mixture is left wet, the flour will clump and the final stew will be thin and floury.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, mustard, sugar, butter, ketchup, 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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