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To Make Collops of Cold Beef

Collops of cold beef simmered in a sauce of water or gravy, onion, pepper, salt, herbs, and butter‑flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Make Collops of Cold Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove all fat from the cold beef and cut it into small, thin pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine water or gravy and bring it to a boil.

  2. Add the chopped onion, pepper, salt, and sweet herbs to the boiling liquid.

  3. Once boiling, add the beef and the butter rolled in flour.

  4. Stir the mixture and let it cook until the sauce thickens and the meat is done.

  5. Remove the sweet herbs and pour the dish into a serving plate.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef
Provides the meat that is cooked through in the sauce.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour thickens the liquid into a sauce while the butter adds richness.
Onion
Adds savoury flavour to the sauce as it simmers.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with butter and flour. Adding the floured butter to liquid that is already boiling lets the flour disperse and swell as starch gelatinises, which thickens the sauce. Adding it to cold liquid or stirring too little can leave lumps or a thin sauce.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, sauce, pepper, butter, flour. 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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