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Beef Collops, Minced

A minced beef dish simmered with onions, flour, and seasonings, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Collops, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all skin from the rump steak and mince it finely.

Make the collops

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter or beef dripping over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and flour, stirring until nicely browned.

  3. Add the minced meat and turn it with a fork for about 10 minutes.

  4. Season with pepper and salt, then add enough boiling water to cover the meat.

  5. Close the lid and let it simmer gently for about 40 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with mashed potatoes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

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

Rump steak
Forms the main body of the dish; minced meat becomes tender as it simmers.
Flour
Browns with the onion and thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness as it softens and browns in the fat.
Butter or beef dripping
Carries heat for browning the onion and flour and adds rich flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the onion and flour. Cooking the flour in fat until nicely browned develops a nutty flavour and colour before liquid is added. Stirring keeps it from scorching, which would taste bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, meat. 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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