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Veal Collops

Veal collops are sliced veal fried and served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the cold meat into neat slices, ½ inch thick and 2 inches wide.

  2. Flatten the slices, removing any gristle and fat.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Heat a little butter in a frying pan and fry the slices until brown on both sides.

  2. In the same pan, stir in 1 teaspoon of flour with the remaining butter after removing the collops.

  3. Add 1½ cups of brown gravy and minced parsley if desired.

  4. Let the gravy boil for 5 minutes, then pour it over the fried collops, buttering each one slightly.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately while very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,040 recipes

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

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

Cold roast fillet or cold meat
Forms the main body of the dish, sliced and fried to brown and firm the surface.
Brown gravy
Provides the sauce and moisture that coats and flavours the fried slices.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices with the butter so the gravy clings to the meat.
Butter
Browns the meat surfaces and adds richness to the pan and the finished slices.

The step that matters

Boiling the gravy after adding the flour. Flour needs to cook briefly in fat and liquid to lose its raw taste and reach full thickening power. Boiling for the full time ensures the sauce thickens evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, 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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