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Scotch Collops

A stew of sliced beef cooked with batter, flour, onion, and optional fruit in hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scotch Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into slices.

  2. Brown some batter and flour in a saucepan.

Stew

  1. Add the beef, salt, pepper, and minced onion to the saucepan.

  2. If desired, add ½ apple or green papaw.

  3. Pour in hot water to cover the beef.

  4. Cover the pan tightly and stew until tender.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,026 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

Tender lean beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered stewing.
Flour
Browned with batter to thicken the cooking liquid and add a toasted flavour.
Batter
Browned in the pan to add colour and body to the sauce.
Onion
Softens during stewing and adds sweetness and aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly and stew until tender. Lean beef is tough and needs long, gentle, moist heat to break down its connective tissue. A tight lid traps steam so the meat stays moist, while a rapid boil would toughen the fibres.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper, onion):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, onion. 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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