Boiled beef Boiled beef Boiled beef is a traditional English dish which used to be eaten by working-class people in London; however, its popularity has decreased in recent years. Traditionally, cheaper cuts of meat were used, because boiling makes the meat more tender than roasting. It was usually cooked with onions and served with carrots and boiled potatoes. It was not uncommon for the beef to be salted in a brine for a few days, then soaked overnight to remove excess salt before it was boiled. In other parts of England cabbage replaced carrots. This dish gave rise to the old cockney
Collops Collops A collop is a slice of meat, according to one definition in the "Oxford English Dictionary". In Elizabethan times, "collops" came to refer specifically to slices of bacon. Shrove Monday, also known as Collop Monday, was traditionally the last day to cook and eat meat before Ash Wednesday, which was a day of fasting and abstinence from meat, and part of pre-Lenten activities. A traditional breakfast dish was collops of bacon topped with a fried egg. At Christ's Hospital, which was founded before the reign of Elizabeth the First, the word collops was used on the menu to mean