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
Gently stew the veal sweetbreads, force-meat balls, truffles, morels, ox palates, and mushrooms for 30 minutes.
Add the juice of ½ lemon to the mixture.
Place the mixture over the collops and garnish with rashers of bacon.
For Scotch collops, add the collops to the ragout and stew for 5 minutes.
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.
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Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,900 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together815 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Meat + truffletop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together527 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,446 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Meat + mushroomtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,423 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, meat, truffle, mushroom):
- Lemonthe original
- Red currantfits about as well
- Coconutfits less well
- Grapefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, meat, truffle, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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