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To Collar Beef

A method of curing and boiling flank beef 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: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

To Collar Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Rub the beef with salt and saltpetre, turning it daily for a week in a cool place.

Prepare and roll

  1. Remove all bones and gristle, and the skin from the inside part of the beef.

  2. Cover the beef thickly with the chopped herbs and spices.

  3. Roll the meat tightly and bind it securely.

Boil and shape

  1. Boil the beef gently for 7 to 8 hours, wrapping it in a cloth before binding.

  2. Place the hot beef under a weight to shape it into an oval.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

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

  3. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flank beef
Lean meat that is rolled and boiled to a firm, sliceable texture.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep a pink cured colour and gives a characteristic cured flavour.
Sage
Adds an aromatic, earthy flavour to the herb coating on the outside of the roll.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the herb and spice coating.

The step that matters

Boiling gently for 7 to 8 hours. Boiling hard agitates the meat and can break it apart and toughen the fibres. A gentle simmer cooks the connective tissue slowly, leaving the roll tender and intact.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, sage, thyme, marjoram, pepper. 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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