MINCED COLLOPS

Beef, raw, minced fine
Clarified butter
Salt
Pepper
Onions, sliced

This is a favorite Scotch dish; few families are without it; it keeps well, and is always ready to make an extra dish.
Take beef, and chop and mince it very small; to which add some salt and pepper. Put this, in its raw state, into small jars, and pour on the top some clarified butter. When intended for use, put the clarified butter into a frying-pan, and slice some onions into the pan, and fry them. Add a little water to it, and then put in the minced meat. Stew it well, and in a few minutes it will be fit to serve up.

The Cook's Oracle by William Kitchiner, MD, New York, 1829

Comment: Kitchiner notes this as being originally from a work called Seaman's Guide by The Hon. John Cochrane, 1797, p. 42. There is nothing dishonorable about one cookbook author using material from another (particularly if the other is so old as to be presumed dead) but it is pleasant to see the earlier source given credit.

The use of the term "collop" for a small circular piece of meat is evidently peculiar to Scotland and the far north of England. The origin of this word is rather obscure, except for hints that it may be related to Swedish kalops "beef stew" and German Klops "meatball".

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