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
Cut the veal into thin pieces about three inches wide and round.
Beat the veal with a rolling pin and sprinkle with grated nutmeg.
Fry and make the sauce
Dip the pieces in the egg yolk and fry in butter until golden brown.
Remove the butter and prepare the sauce by mixing gravy, butter, flour, cream, and salt.
Stir the sauce until thickened, then pour over the collops to serve.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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, cooked quickly to stay tender when thinly cut.
- Egg yolk
- Coats the veal so it browns evenly and helps the coating hold in the pan.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it body.
- Cream
- Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce.
- Butter
- Fries the veal to golden brown and adds rich flavour.
The step that matters
Stir the sauce until thickened. Flour must be cooked while stirred so it thickens smoothly without lumps. Stopping too early leaves a raw, pasty taste, while letting it boil too hard can make the cream split.
“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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