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Scotch Collops

Veal pieces browned and simmered with onion and mace in a gravy.

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

  1. Dredge the veal pieces in flour.

  2. Fry the veal in fresh butter until lightly browned.

  3. Place the browned veal in a stew pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Gradually add boiling water to cover the veal, shaking the pan.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim off any scum, and add the onion and mace.

  3. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the veal on a dish and pour the strained gravy over it.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

Veal
Is the main protein, becoming tender as it simmers slowly in liquid.
Flour
Coats the veal so it browns and helps thicken the gravy.
Fresh butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and browns the flour-coated veal.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the simmering gravy.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum after bringing to a boil. Scum rising from the veal is impurities and fat that would cloud and dull the gravy if left in, so removing it keeps the sauce clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, 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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