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Scotch Collops

Veal collops fried and simmered with onion and mace in a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Dredge the veal pieces in flour.

  2. Fry the veal in fresh butter until light brown.

Stew

  1. Place the fried veal in a stew pan.

  2. Gradually add boiling water to cover the veal, shaking the pan.

  3. Bring to a boil, remove the scum, and add the onion and mace.

  4. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a dish and strain the gravy over the veal.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Veal
Is the main protein, becoming tender through slow simmering in liquid.
Flour
Coats the veal so it browns in the butter and helps thicken the gravy.
Fresh butter
Fat for frying that browns the flour-coated veal and adds rich flavour.
Onion
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Removing the scum after boiling. Scum rising to the surface of a boiling liquid contains coagulated proteins and impurities. Skimming it off keeps the gravy clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, butter, onion. 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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