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Scotch Collops

Thin veal collops fried in butter and served with a thickened gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scotch Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut veal into thin pieces about 3 inches wide and round.

  2. Beat the pieces with a rolling pin and sprinkle with nutmeg.

  3. Dip each piece into the egg yolk.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry in butter until golden brown.

  2. Remove excess butter.

  3. Prepare the sauce.

  4. Mix gravy with flour, egg yolk, cream, and salt; stir until thickened.

  5. Serve the sauce over the collops.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender, savoury meat.
Butter
Fat that browns the veal pieces and adds rich flavour.
Egg yolk
Coats the veal and, when stirred into the sauce, helps thicken and enrich it.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce until thickened. Flour and egg yolk must be stirred steadily as the gravy heats; the starch swells and the yolk sets gently, so the sauce thickens smoothly. Overheating or not stirring can cause lumps or curdling.

“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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