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 ↓
Beef Collops
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the steaks into pieces in the form of Scotch collops, slightly larger than usual.
Hack and flour the collops.
Cook
Melt a sufficient quantity of butter in a stewpan.
Fry the collops quickly for about 2 minutes.
Add 1 pint of gravy and a bit of butter rolled in flour.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Rump steak
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked quickly to stay tender.
- Flour
- Coats the collops and thickens the gravy when mixed with butter.
- Butter
- Fries the collops and, rolled in flour, helps thicken the sauce.
- Gravy
- Forms the liquid sauce that moistens and flavours the collops.
The step that matters
Fry the collops quickly for about 2 minutes. Brief high heat seals the surface and keeps the thin meat tender. Overcooking toughens the proteins and dries the meat.
“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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