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Stewed Kidney on Toast

Stewed kidney served on toast with a seasoned gravy.

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 Kidney on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the kidneys lengthwise into thirds.

  2. In a frying pan, warm the butter over medium heat.

Stew

  1. Add the kidneys, minced onion, water, and gravy.

  2. Cover and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Season with mace, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  4. Remove the kidneys and thicken the gravy with browned flour.

Serve

  1. Serve the kidneys on a hot platter with toast.

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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
Provide the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering in the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps begin the browning of the kidneys.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the kidneys and the toast.
Gravy
Supplies the main liquid and savoury flavour for the stew.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering the kidneys gently. High heat or a hard boil toughens kidney muscle fibres and can make the meat rubbery. A gentle, covered simmer keeps it tender and lets the gravy flavour develop.

Swap the mace

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

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

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