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Ox Kidney

Thinly sliced ox kidneys fried in butter, then simmered in broth with eschalots, parsley, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ox Kidney

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ox kidneys into thin slices and wash them well.

  2. Dry the slices, then sprinkle with pepper, salt, and flour.

Make the stew

  1. Fry the slices in butter for a few minutes until browned.

  2. Gradually add 1 quart of boiling broth or water.

  3. Add the chopped eschalots or onions, parsley, and vinegar or catsup.

  4. Let it simmer gently for about an hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with sippets of 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 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 kidneys
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during the long gentle simmer.
Flour
Dusted on the slices to help them brown and to lightly thicken the stew.
Butter
Fat for frying the slices, adding browning and rich flavour.
Broth or water
Forms the liquid base in which the stew simmers.
Eschalots or onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the liquid.

The step that matters

Gradually add the boiling broth. Adding the liquid slowly while the flour-coated slices are hot helps prevent lumps and lets the flour blend smoothly into a even sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, parsley, vinegar, bread. 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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