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To Drefs Scotch-Collops the French Way

Veal collops seasoned with egg yolk, pepper, salt, nutmeg, parsley, browned and served with truffle and morel gravy and hard‑boiled egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Drefs Scotch-Collops the French Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into thick collops, about 5-6 inches long and 3 inches wide.

  2. Rub the collops with the egg yolk, then season with pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, and parsley.

Brown and baste

  1. Place the collops in an earthen dish and set them before the fire to brown, basting with butter.

  2. Turn the collops over, rub with egg yolk, and baste again until browned on both sides.

Gravy and serve

  1. Prepare a good brown gravy with truffles and morels.

  2. Serve the collops topped with truffles, morels, and the yolks of hard-boiled eggs, garnished with crispy parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish, cut into thick slices that brown in butter.
Egg yolk
Coats the collops, helping seasoning adhere and promoting an even golden browning.
Butter
Carries heat over the surface and adds richness while basting the collops as they brown.
Truffles and morels
Add earthy aroma and savoury depth to the brown gravy and topping.

The step that matters

Browning the collops by basting. The collops must brown evenly on both sides before they are served. Basting with butter transfers heat to the surface and encourages Maillard browning, while turning ensures the meat cooks through without drying out.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, pepper, parsley, butter, truffle):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, pepper, parsley, butter, truffle. 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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