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Stewed Beef Kidney

A stew of sliced beef kidneys cooked with flour and water, seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Stewed Beef Kidney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the kidneys into slices and season with salt and pepper.

Cook

  1. Fry the slices in a pan until light brown, then remove them.

  2. Pour warm water into the pan and dredge in flour.

  3. Return the kidney slices to the pan and let them stew gently.

  4. Add parsley if desired.

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

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

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef kidneys
Form the main body of the stew, becoming tender as they stew gently.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy around the kidney slices.

The step that matters

Frying the kidney slices until light brown. Searing the surface builds browned flavour through the Maillard reaction and helps the slices hold their shape. Pale, underbrowned slices give a flatter taste in the finished stew.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, flour):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour. 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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