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Mutton Rumps and Kidneys

A stew of mutton rumps and kidneys served with rice, onions, spices, and garnished with boiled eggs or pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mutton Rumps and Kidneys

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rumps and gravy

  1. Stew the mutton rumps in good mutton gravy for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the rumps.

  3. Let them cool.

  4. Strain the gravy to remove fat.

  5. Add boiled rice, onion with cloves, and mace to the gravy.

  6. Boil until the rice thickens.

Coat and fry

  1. Wash the rumps with beaten egg yolks.

  2. Coat the rumps with bread crumbs, pepper, salt, parsley, thyme, and lemon peel.

  3. Fry the rumps in butter until golden brown.

  4. Remove excess fat from the pan.

  5. Warm the rice in the pan.

  6. Lard the kidneys.

  7. Roast the kidneys in a Dutch oven.

Plate and serve

  1. Place the rice in the center of a serving dish.

  2. Arrange the rumps around the rice with narrow ends towards the middle.

  3. Place the kidneys in between the rumps.

  4. Garnish with halved hard boiled eggs or assorted pickles.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 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 rumps
Stewing in gravy and then frying gives them tender meat with a golden, browned crust.
Boiled rice
Thickens the strained gravy into a binding sauce-like base for the dish.
Egg yolks
Act as a binder that helps the bread crumb coating adhere to the rumps.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the rumps when fried.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the coating.
Kidneys
Add a rich, savoury flavour and firmer texture alongside the mutton.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy with rice until it thickens. Rice starch swells and gelatinises as it cooks in liquid, so the gravy thickens only if it is boiled long enough. Stop too early and the sauce stays thin; keep boiling too long and the rice breaks down and the texture turns pasty.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, onion, clove, egg, bread, 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.

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