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Veal Collops

Veal collops are sliced veal fried and served with a brown gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Slice the cold meat into neat pieces, half an inch thick and two inches wide.

  2. Flatten the slices with a rolling pin after removing gristle and fat.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Heat a little butter in a frying pan and fry the collops until brown on both sides.

  2. After removing the collops, stir 1 teaspoon of flour into the butter in the pan.

  3. Add 1½ cups of brown gravy and minced parsley if desired, and let it boil for five minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fried collops, buttering each one slightly before serving.

  2. Serve immediately while very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Cold roast veal or any cold meat
Forms the main body of the dish once sliced and fried until browned.
Butter
Browns the collops in the pan and adds richness to the sauce and finish.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices and butter into a sauce that clings to the meat.
Brown gravy
Supplies the liquid and savoury flavour of the sauce poured over the collops.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce after adding the gravy. Flour needs to be cooked for a few minutes in hot liquid to lose its raw taste and reach full thickness. Letting the sauce boil for the full five minutes ensures it thickens evenly and tastes cooked rather than floury.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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