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Scotch Collops

A layered beef dish with bread, apple, and onion, cooked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Scotch Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Beat the beef with a rolling pin.

  2. Cut the beef into pieces.

Layer and cook

  1. Grease a saucepan with beef suet.

  2. Layer the beef in the bottom of the saucepan.

  3. Sprinkle the grated bread, minced apple, and minced onion over the beef.

  4. Season the dish with salt and pepper.

  5. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used.

  6. Cover the saucepan with a lid.

  7. Cook very slowly until ready.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow, gentle cooking.
Grated bread
Soaks up cooking juices and helps thicken the collops as they cook.
Apple
Adds moisture and a mild sweet-tart flavour that balances the savoury beef.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it softens and releases its flavour during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook very slowly until ready. Gentle heat in a covered pan lets tough connective tissue in the beef break down slowly, producing tenderness. High heat would toughen the meat and could scorch the bread and onion at the bottom of the pan.

Swap the apple

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

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

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