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Collared Beef

A salted and boiled beef rib dish preserved with saltpetre, sugar, coarse salt, bay leaves, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Cure the beef

  1. Sprinkle the boned beef ribs with saltpetre and brown sugar, and let it sit for 2 days.

  2. Heat the coarse salt in a frying pan until hot, then rub it into the beef.

  3. Let the beef sit in salt for 10 days.

  4. Wash the beef with the pickle every second day and turn it every second day.

  5. Add a few bay leaves to the pickle.

  6. Sprinkle the beef with fine spice about a week before boiling.

Cook and press

  1. Beat the beef on a chopping block with a cleaver for about 5 minutes to tenderize it.

  2. Tie the beef tightly in cloth, and tie the ends of the cloth tightly.

  3. Boil until very tender, then remove the beef.

  4. Place the beef in a press with a heavy weight on top.

  5. If no press is available, use a dish and press it down as much as possible.

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

Beef ribs
Main meat that becomes firm, tender and sliceable once cured and cooked.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat and gives the cooked beef its characteristic pink colour.
Coarse salt
Draws out moisture and penetrates the meat to preserve it and firm its texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salty cure and supports browning of the surface.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle herbal aroma to the pickle that flavours the beef.

The step that matters

Keep the beef in the salt cure for the full 10 days, turning it every second day. Salt and nitrate must travel slowly through thick meat to cure it evenly. Turning and washing the beef in the pickle keeps the cure in contact with all surfaces, so the centre is preserved as well as the outside.

“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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