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Minced Collops

A sautéed minced beef dish with onion, ketchup, bread crumbs, and butter, served hot with toasted sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Minced Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the beef collops and finely dice the onion.

  2. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the onion and sauté until translucent.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the beef collops, pepper, and salt; cook until browned.

  2. Stir in the ketchup, water, and bread crumbs; mix well.

  3. Serve hot with toasted sippets.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef collops
Forms the main body of the dish and browns to give savory flavor.
Onion
Softens as it sautés, adding sweetness and aroma to the base.
Butter
Carries the onion and beef, adding richness and helping them brown.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the mixture, giving it body.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity, deepening the flavor of the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the beef collops. Browning the meat over sufficient heat creates savory flavor through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or stirring too early steams the meat grey instead, so it browns poorly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, ketchup, bread. 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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