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Beef, Collared

A preserved beef prepared by salting, pickling, and slow simmering with herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef, Collared

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Bone and skin the beef, then rub it with salt, saltpetre, and sugar.

  2. Let it stand for 5 days, then wash off the pickle, drain, and dry with a cloth.

  3. Make notches in the meat and insert strips of bacon into the cuts.

  4. Mix parsley, sweet herbs, pounded cloves, cayenne, mace, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Strew the mixture evenly over the inside of the meat.

  6. Roll up the meat tightly and tie it securely.

Cook and set

  1. Wrap in a cloth and place in a saucepan of boiling water.

  2. Boil briefly, then simmer slowly for 6 hours.

  3. Remove the cloth and place the beef in a mold.

  4. Set a weight on top and let it cool.

  5. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Thin flank beef
Forms the main body of the dish, and its rolled layers hold the filling together when sliced.
Common salt
Cures the meat by drawing out moisture and seasoning it through the pickling period.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
Sugar
Balances the saltiness of the cure and adds mild flavour to the meat.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky savoury flavour to the lean beef as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmering the rolled beef slowly. Boiling hard toughens the muscle fibres and can break up the roll, so the beef should only be kept at a gentle simmer for the full six hours to become tender and hold its shape.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, parsley, clove, pepper, nutmeg. 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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