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Collared Beef

Collared beef is a cured beef prepared by rubbing with salt, sugar, and spices, then boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,435 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Collared Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Bone the beef and remove the skin.

  2. Rub the beef with saltpetre, salprunella, coarse sea salt, brown sugar, and common salt.

  3. Let it cure for a week, basting daily.

Season and cook

  1. Wipe the beef and rub it well with spices.

  2. Roll it up tightly and fasten it in a cloth.

  3. Boil for six hours.

  4. Remove from water and place under a press 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. Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 meat that is cured, rolled and cooked.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat and gives it a pink colour during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the cure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
Common salt
Seasons the meat and helps preserve it during the cure.

The step that matters

Let it cure for a week, basting daily. The salt and curing agents must penetrate the whole piece of beef evenly. Basting daily keeps the cure in contact with the surface, so the meat cures consistently rather than unevenly over the week.

“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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