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Veal Kidney Stew

A stew made with veal kidneys, butter, flour, tomato, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and beef stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Veal Kidney Stew

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the kidneys

  1. Trim the veal kidneys and cut them finely.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the kidneys and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly colored.

  4. Stir in the flour and cook until slightly browned.

Make the stew

  1. Add the thick strained tomato, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and beef stock.

  2. Stir and simmer for 5 minutes.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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

Veal kidneys
Provide the main meat, which browns lightly and becomes tender in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the heat and adds richness while the kidneys begin to color.
Flour
Thickens the stew and browns slightly, adding body and a toasty flavour.
Thick strained tomato
Adds body, acidity and a bright tomato flavour to the sauce.
Beef stock
Supplies the liquid that turns the mixture into a simmering stew.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and cook until slightly browned. Cooking the flour in fat until it just browns removes raw starch taste and helps it thicken smoothly. Undercooked flour leaves a pasty flavour, while over-browning can make the stew bitter.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, ketchup, sauce, beef):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, ketchup, sauce, beef. 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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