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Scotch Collops

Veal collops sautéed in butter, served with a brown gravy ragout of wine, sweetbreads, truffles, morels, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into thin pieces, about the size of a crown piece.

  2. Dust the veal with flour.

  3. Melt butter in a frying pan and fry the collops until brown.

  4. Transfer the collops to a dish.

Make the ragout

  1. In a stewpan, melt more butter and add flour, stirring until smooth.

  2. Pour in the brown gravy and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Add white wine, sweetbreads, force-meat balls, truffles, morels, ox-palates, and mushrooms.

  4. Stew gently for 30 minutes, then add lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Pour the ragout over the collops and garnish with bacon.

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. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the tender meat base that is fried and then covered with the sauce.
Butter
Browns the veal in the pan and enriches the flour-thickened sauce with fat and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce and helps the veal brown when dusted on.
Brown gravy
Forms the main liquid of the ragout, carrying savoury depth through the dish.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the rich brown gravy.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy savoury flavour and moisture to the slow-stewed ragout.

The step that matters

Frying the collops until brown. Browning the floured veal in hot butter builds flavour through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or under-heating it will steam the meat, leaving it pale and less flavourful.

“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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