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Stewed Kidneys

A stew of kidneys simmered with butter, onion, water, gravy, spices, and lemon, served over fried bread or toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut each kidney into three lengthwise pieces.

  2. Warm the butter in a frying pan.

Make the stew

  1. Add the kidneys, minced onion, water, and gravy before the butter is hot.

  2. Cover and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Add mace, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  4. Thicken the gravy with brown flour.

  5. Boil once.

Serve

  1. Prepare a hot platter with fried bread or toast.

  2. Pour the kidney mixture over the bread.

  3. Serve.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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 supply its meaty texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for browning the kidneys in the pan.
Good gravy
Supplies most of the liquid and savory flavor of the stew.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the kidneys and bread.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory flavors.

The step that matters

Add the kidneys before the butter is hot. Adding meat to a pan that is not yet hot causes it to steam and release juices rather than brown, which weakens flavor. Kidneys added to cool butter may also turn grey and tough instead of developing a light surface color.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, nutmeg, pepper, lemon, bread, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, nutmeg, pepper, lemon, bread, 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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