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Minced Collops

A savory dish of finely minced beef simmered with onion, thyme, and butter, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Minced Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into thin slices, then into strips, and chop very fine.

  2. Peel and chop the onion.

  3. Cut the toast into small diamond or fancy shapes.

Make the collops

  1. In a pan over medium heat, melt the butter, then add the flour and stir until browned.

  2. Add the water, minced beef, onion, thyme, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the minced beef into a serving dish, arrange the toast around the border, and garnish with parsley.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beef
Forms the body of the dish as the main protein, held in a thick, savoury sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and flavour to the base of the sauce.
Flour
Browned in the butter, then thickens the water into a smooth, lightly coloured sauce.
Onion
Softens during simmering and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in butter. Stirring the flour in melted butter until it turns brown cooks off its raw taste and builds a nutty, toasted flavour. Stop before it darkens too far, or it turns bitter and the sauce tastes burnt.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, thyme, 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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