Skip to main content
Dessert

Mutton Dormers

Mutton Dormers are fried, cork-shaped dumplings made from mutton, rice, suet, shallot, egg, breadcrumbs, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and shallot work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Dormers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook and dry the rice as directed.

  2. Combine the rice, mutton, suet, shallot, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Mix the ingredients well and form them into cork-shaped pieces.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the pieces with egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy.

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. Rice + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Rice
Bulks out the filling and helps it hold its cork shape.
Egg
Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs stick to the pieces.
Breadcrumbs
Forms a crisp, golden outer layer when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns. Hot fat sears the breadcrumbs quickly, sealing the surface and giving a crisp, golden crust.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, rice, pepper, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, pepper, egg. 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.

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesRice JellyRice Jelly42 recipesRice PuddingRice Pudding22 recipes