Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Kidneys

A stew of sliced kidneys cooked with mushrooms, thyme, parsley, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Skin the kidneys and remove all the fat.

  2. Cut them into slices no more than ½ inch thick.

  3. Finely mince the eschalot, mushrooms, and thyme.

  4. Use double the amount of minced parsley.

  5. Sprinkle the kidney slices with the mixture, salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne.

Cook the stew

  1. Melt the butter in a clean stewpan and fry the kidneys until browned on both sides.

  2. Thicken with flour.

  3. Add the hot stock and a squeeze of lemon.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Skim off any foam.

  6. Serve with fried bread sippets.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Form the main body of the stew, and browning them in butter builds flavour.
Butter
Fat for frying the kidneys, promoting browning and carrying flavour.
Stock
Liquid that forms the body of the stew sauce once thickened.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the stock into a sauce with body.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich kidney and stock flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming off the foam. Foam rising as the stew comes to a boil carries impurities and scum from the meat; removing it keeps the sauce clean-tasting and clear.

“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.

More kidney stew recipes

Beef 16Ox 3 See all 56 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes