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Minced Collops
Shred a shallot and part of an onion as small as may be, and brown them both in a stewpan, with a good lump of butter; let them not acquire much colour. Have ready minced a pound of the fillet or a rump-steak. Add it to the browned onion, with a small cup of stock, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, or a few button mushrooms, also minced, and a little parsley and thyme tied together. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring it to the boil, and simmer gently for a few minutes. Serve hot, with toasted sippets round the dish. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. per pound. Sufficient for two or three persons. (See also BEEF COLLOPS, MINCED.)
A quick beef mince in the Scottish manner, and unusual among Victorian meat dishes in that it is meant to be on the table in under twenty minutes. The whole point is short cooking of good meat, so resist the urge to stew it.
- Mince means chopped, not groundMince here means chopped rather than machine-ground. Victorian mincing was often done by hand with a heavy knife, leaving a coarse, uneven texture. Supermarket ground beef is pressed and much finer, and it will turn to a grey paste in the pan; ask a butcher to coarse-grind rump, or chop it yourself.
- The hinge: a few minutes only"Simmer gently for a few minutes" is literal. Lean fillet or rump held at a simmer past five or six minutes goes dry and grainy, and no amount of extra stock brings it back.
- StewpanA broad, straight-sided pan with a lid; a modern saucepan or sauté pan will serve. Enough width to spread the meat in a shallow layer helps it cook evenly in the small amount of stock.
- A small cup of stockRead this as about 4 fl oz (120 ml). It should just moisten the meat and make a scant gravy, not cover it.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquor, not a tomato product. It is still sold by British specialist grocers; a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce or a teaspoon of soy plus a little sherry gets close to the same savoury depth.
- Brown the onion without colourThe instruction sounds contradictory but means sweating in butter until soft and translucent, stopping short of any real browning. Medium-low heat, five to seven minutes.
- The tied herbsParsley and thyme bound with string is a small bouquet garni, meant to be lifted out before serving. Tie it rather than scattering the sprigs loose.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread, here toasted, arranged around the dish. They stand in for the mashed potato or rice a modern cook would reach for.
- Yield and costTwo to three as written, which is generous for a pound of beef; treat it as two modern main-course portions. The 1s. 4d. per pound is a Victorian price and has no bearing on anything you will pay.
"Collops" is an old word for slices or cuts of meat, attested in Middle English from the fourteenth century and long survived in Scotland, where collops came in two forms: whole collops, thin steaks quickly cooked, and minced collops, the chopped version given here. Minced collops are often said to have become something close to a Scottish national supper dish, and the version in a big Victorian compendium like Cassell's is a genteel dressing-up of it, using fillet or rump rather than whatever was cheap and adding shallot, mushroom ketchup and a bouquet garni to a preparation that in a Scots farmhouse might have been little more than beef, onion, water and oatmeal. The mushroom ketchup marks the date as clearly as anything else on the page, since it was the standard bottled savoury seasoning of British kitchens before tomato ketchup and commercial meat extracts displaced it.