Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Rumps and Kidneys

A stew of mutton rumps and kidneys served with rice, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Cook the rumps

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

  2. Remove the rumps from the stew.

  3. Let the rumps cool.

  4. Strain the gravy to remove fat.

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

  6. Boil the mixture until the rice thickens.

  7. Wash the rumps with beaten egg yolks.

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

  9. Fry the rumps in butter until golden brown.

  10. Remove excess fat from the pan.

Prepare the rice and kidneys

  1. Warm the rice in the pan.

  2. Lard the kidneys.

  3. Roast the larded kidneys in a Dutch oven.

Serve

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

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

  3. Place the kidneys 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 makes them tender, and frying in butter after coating gives them a golden, crisp crust.
Boiled rice
Thickens the strained gravy as it boils, giving the sauce body and a creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Beaten yolks act as a binder so the bread crumb coating adheres to the rumps.
Bread crumbs
Form a coating that browns in the butter and gives the rumps a crisp exterior.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds richness to the coated rumps.
Kidneys
Larding adds fat that keeps the kidneys moist during roasting.

The step that matters

Boil the rice-gravy mixture until the rice thickens. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and starch leaches out as it cooks, so it can turn stiff or gluey if boiled too long; stop once it thickens to a smooth, pourable consistency.

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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipes