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Scotch Collops

Scotch Collops is a dish of finely shredded beef cooked with butter, flour, and seasonings, served on toast with a poached egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scotch Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Hash the beef very fine, removing every thread and coarse fiber.

  2. Place the beef in a chafing dish.

  3. Add a little cold water.

Cook the collops

  1. Cook until gray-brown.

  2. Add a tiny lump of butter.

  3. Pat down with the back of a spoon, turning quickly and frequently.

  4. When nearly done, add a little hot water to make gravy.

  5. Dredge the collops in a little flour.

  6. Add a piece of butter.

  7. Add a little pepper and mix well.

  8. Add a little salt just before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the collops on slices of toast.

  2. Top with a poached egg.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Beef
Provides the meat that browns and firms as it cooks, forming the body of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that coats the beef.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, flavour and a glossy finish to the collops.
Egg
Its proteins set when poached, adding richness and a soft, creamy topping.

The step that matters

Cook until gray-brown. Finely hashed beef cooks quickly, and overcooking toughens its proteins and dries the meat. Stop once the surface turns gray-brown so the collops stay tender and moist.

“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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