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Scots Collops

A stew of thinly sliced beef, onion, and apple simmered in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scots Collops

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the bottom of a covered iron stew-pan with butter.

  2. Add the sliced beef, onion, apple, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cover the stew-pan and simmer until the meat is very tender.

  4. Serve hot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Thin slices cook through quickly and become tender with gentle simmering in the covered pan.
Butter
Fat that coats the pan and helps prevent the meat and onion from sticking as they start to cook.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens and releases its juices into the pan.
Apple
Finely minced apple softens into the juices, adding gentle sweetness and a touch of acidity.

The step that matters

Simmer covered until very tender. Beef is tough and needs low, moist heat over a long enough time for its connective tissue to break down. Keeping the lid on traps steam so the meat stays moist, while too much heat can toughen it. Check that the meat is fully tender before serving.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

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