Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Kidneys

A stew of kidney pieces cooked slowly in butter, flour, and water, seasoned with salt, pepper, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the kidneys into small pieces and remove all fat.

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour until blended.

  2. Add the kidney pieces and stir until browned.

  3. Pour in enough water to create a nice gravy.

  4. Boil slowly for three hours, seasoning with salt, pepper, and catsup.

  5. For added flavor, include an onion while boiling, but remove it before it breaks up.

  6. If the gravy is too thin, blend in a little flour to thicken.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Kidneys
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during the long slow simmer.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavor when the flour is cooked into it.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells during cooking and browning adds depth.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for three hours. A slow, gentle simmer lets tough kidney fibers soften without the liquid reducing too fast or the meat toughening. A hard boil can make the meat tough and the gravy scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More kidney stew recipes

Beef 16Ox 3 See all 56 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes