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Collared Beef

A beef flank rolled with spices, butter, and parsley, then boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Collared Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the inside skin, bones, and gristles from the flank beef.

  2. Rub the beef with saltpetre and coarse sea salt, then let it brine for 4 days.

  3. Wash and dry the beef, then rub it with pepper and allspice.

Stuff and roll

  1. Mix some pepper and allspice with chopped parsley and stuff it into the beef.

  2. Add fresh butter inside the beef and roll it up tightly in a cloth.

  3. Tie the cloth securely and boil the beef slowly for 5 hours.

Finish

  1. After boiling, let it sit in the cloth for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the cloth and press the beef with a weight until cold.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flank beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sliceable after slow boiling.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat and helps it keep its pink colour during the brining period.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out and seasons the beef during the brine.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture inside the rolled beef as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the beef slowly for 5 hours. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, giving tender meat. A hard boil toughens the outer layer and can loosen the cloth, so keep the water just below a rolling boil.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, parsley, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, parsley, butter. 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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