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Stewed Kidneys

Stewed kidneys are simmered in water with optional onion, then browned in fat and served on toast with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the kidneys

  1. Wash the kidneys and soak them in lukewarm salted water for 1 hour.

  2. Drain, remove the skin, cut them open, and remove the tubes.

  3. Cover with cold water, heat gradually to boiling, then cook just below boiling for 20 minutes; drain.

Make the stew

  1. Cut into pieces, season, roll in flour, and brown in hot fat.

  2. Cover with boiling water, cover, and cook just below boiling for 1.5 hours or until tender. Add onion if desired.

  3. Thicken with flour mixed to a paste with cold water; season to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast, garnished with toast points and parsley.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 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

Kidneys
Form the main body of the stew, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Coats the pieces for browning and thickens the liquid into a stew.
Fat for frying
Browns the floured kidney pieces, adding colour and roasted flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth to the stew liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook just below boiling for 1.5 hours. A hard boil toughens meat proteins and can break the pieces apart, so a gentle simmer keeps the kidneys tender and the liquid clear.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, parsley. 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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