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Scotch Collops

A minced steak and onion mixture cooked with butter, water, salt, and pepper, served with poached eggs and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scotch Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the steak finely.

  2. Chop the onion.

  3. Pour boiling water over the onion. Let it stand for a few minutes, then drain the onion.

Cook

  1. Combine the drained onion with the steak, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the water.

  3. Cook gently over low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent lumps.

Serve

  1. Serve with poached eggs on top and fried bacon around the edge.

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

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Provides the main protein and body of the dish once minced and cooked gently.
Onion
Adds savoury flavour and aroma; scalding and draining softens its sharpness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the gentle cooking.

The step that matters

Cooking gently with occasional stirring. Low heat and regular stirring keep the minced meat from clumping or drying out, giving an even, tender texture over the long simmer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter. 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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