Collop Monday Collops

History

Shrovetide, the days between Quinquagesima Sunday and Ash Wednesday, is characterized by the final Carnival celebrations and Lenten preparations. The “removing of flesh” throughout these three days refers not only to the upcoming suppression of human desire that occurs throughout the Lenten season but also to the literal elimination of meat from the Christian diet. To get ready for the upcoming fasting season, Shrove Monday, or “Collop Monday,” was a time in which all remaining meat in the house was cooked up and eaten so that it would not be around at the beginning of Lent.

Collop Monday, then, is a day on which to eat collops. Collops is the name of a breakfast meat dish that fries up any remaining meat and serves it in combination with eggs—a delectable way to eat up any bacon, pork, sausage, or other cuts of meat you might have laying around your kitchen and household food stores.

Collop Monday

Collops hail from England, helping to make sense of why this dish is a traditional savory breakfast food. Just like the other savory breakfasts England is known for (think baked beans, black pudding, and grilled tomato), this dish has a unique flavor profile that pairs fried meat with fried eggs. Similar to an American classic, bacon and eggs, the dish historically used any sort of thin cut of meat to make collops. Pork or ham was a classic, but steak, beef, or veal were traditionally used, as well. It has only been in more recent decades that bacon became the popular type of meat used in Collop Monday dishes. The main gist is that the meat ought to be cut into pieces, which is where the Latin term colpones comes from.

This dish wasn’t just a convenient excuse to get rid of any meat products in the house, though; it was also a recipe that you could use to eliminate any beef or chicken broth unable to be used during Lent, any opened wine that needed to be drunk, and oil that couldn’t be stored throughout the next forty days.

Collop Monday was also the time when the household would make an evaluation about what lard it had lying around. The meal was supposed to be another time to use up this type of cooking fat, and any fat remaining (or rendered from the dish) was then incorporated into the following day’s Shrovetide celebration, usually the making and eating of pancakes on Fat Tuesday!

A true smorgasbord of a dish, Collops is a very loose recipe genre and something you can adapt to what you have lying around. At its most complicated it is a meat dish served with a hearty tomato-inspired sauce, but at its simplest, it’s just bacon and eggs! Happy Carnival!

Ingredients

4 tablespoons of butter or lard

1 medium onion, sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

¼ cup mushrooms, diced

½ tablespoon thickener (such as flour or arrowroot starch)

¾ cups beef bone broth (or chicken broth)

½ cup red or white wine (optional)

2 teaspoons ketchup

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly crushed black peppercorns

1 pound bacon, beef, or pork cut into strips

Instructions

1. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and melt the butter in the pan. Add onion, garlic, and mushrooms until lightly browned and softened. Add the flour, scrape the bottom of the pan and let it thicken.
2. Add the beef broth, optional wine, ketchup, and lemon juice to deglaze your pan. Season with salt and pepper before adding in your 1 lb of meat.
3. Simmer meat for about 20 minutes until cooked through and the sauce has slightly reduced. While the meat is cooking, fry 1-3 eggs per person.
4. When your meat has come to temperature, serve it and the sauce over your eggs as well as toasted and buttered bread.