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Savousy Mixced Collops

A sautéed mixture of minced rump steak with herbs, butter, and flour, finished with catsup or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Savousy Mixced Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Make a brown thickening by melting the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until it begins to color.

  3. Mix in the parsley, salt, and pepper, stirring over gentle heat until deep yellow brown.

Cook the collops

  1. Add the minced steak, separating it with a fork until heated through.

  2. Gradually pour in the boiling water and stew gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Before serving, stir in catsup, chili vinegar, or lemon juice to taste.

  4. Optionally, add minced onion, shallot, or garlic at the beginning for extra flavor.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a brown thickening that gives the sauce body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid once browned, giving the collops a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Rump steak
Forms the meat base; mincing it finely lets it cook quickly and tenderly in the sauce.
Parsley or mixed savory herbs
Adds fresh, savory aroma to the thickening.

The step that matters

Browning the flour and butter. Stirring until deep yellow brown toasts the flour, building nutty flavor and color; too little browning leaves the sauce pale and raw-tasting, while scorching gives bitterness. Gentle heat and constant stirring prevent burning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, pepper, vinegar. 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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