Name: To Make Collops of Cold Beef
Ingredients: cold inside of a surloin of beef; 1 onion, finely chopped; water or gravy (enough for sauce); pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; sweet herbs; butter (1 piece); flour (for rolling butter)

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 ↓

To Make Collops of Cold Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove all fat from the cold beef and cut it into thin bits.

Make the sauce

In a pot, boil enough water or gravy for the sauce.
Season the boiling liquid with pepper, coarse sea salt, and sweet herbs.
Add the beef and a piece of butter rolled in flour to the pot.
Stir and shake the pot until the sauce thickens and the meat is cooked.
Remove the sweet herbs and pour the sauce over the beef in a dish.

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.

Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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

Cold beef: Provides the meat that is cooked gently in the sauce until tender.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, glossy finish.
Flour: Coats the butter so it thickens the liquid into a sauce as it melts.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with the floured butter. Stirring and shaking keeps the butter and flour dispersed as they melt, which helps the sauce thicken smoothly without lumps or scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sauce, pepper, butter, flour. 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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To Make Collops of Cold Beef