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Beef Kidney Au Vin

A dish of beef kidneys cooked with white wine, stock, butter, lemon juice, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beef Kidney Au Vin

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the kidneys and dress them on a quick fire to retain their gravy.

  2. Sprinkle a little flour over the kidneys and moisten with white wine and stock.

  3. Remove from heat before boiling. Add butter and lemon juice.

  4. Serve hot, garnished with chopped 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef kidneys
Provide the main meat, which is cooked quickly so it stays tender.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy around the kidneys.
White wine
Moistens the kidneys and adds acidity and aroma to the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before boiling. Kidney turns firm and rubbery when overcooked, so the pan should come off the heat before the liquid boils.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, white wine, flour, butter, lemon, pepper, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, white wine, flour, butter, lemon, pepper, 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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