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Beep-collops

Thin slices of beef sautéed and simmered in gravy with shallot, walnut, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beep-collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Cut the steak into thin pieces about 3 inches long.

  2. Beat the pieces with the blade of a knife and dredge with flour.

Cook

  1. Heat the butter in a frying pan and fry the steak for about 3 minutes.

  2. Transfer the steak to a small saucepan and pour the gravy over it.

  3. Add a piece of butter kneaded with a little flour, along with the seasoning and other ingredients.

  4. Let the mixture simmer (do not boil) for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve in a hot covered dish.

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. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + caperstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ramp-steak
Provides the main meat, which is thinly cut and cooked until tender.
Butter
Fries the steak and, kneaded with flour, thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour (in the method)
Dredged on the beaten steak and kneaded into butter to help thicken the gravy.
Gravy
Forms the liquid of the sauce, which the steak simmers in to stay moist.
Pickled walnut
Adds a sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the sauce.
Capers
Add a briny, acidic bite that brightens the sauce.

The step that matters

Let the mixture simmer (do not boil) for 10 minutes. Boiling a flour-thickened sauce can cause it to break or turn lumpy, and it toughens the meat. A gentle simmer keeps the sauce smooth and the steak tender.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, shallot, capers):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, shallot, capers. 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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