Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
To Collar Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the beef
Make a pickle with brown sugar, coarse sea salt, and saltpetre.
Submerge the flank of beef in the pickle for 10 days, turning daily.
Prepare and stuff
Remove the beef, leaving the outer skin, and beat the inside with a rolling pin until tender.
Score the flesh in rows, being careful not to cut the skin.
Fill the scores with alternating slices of bacon, corned pork, and chopped herbs seasoned with spices.
Roll the flank tightly and bind it with coarse tape.
Cook and finish
Wrap in a cloth and boil gently for 4 to 5 hours, depending on the size.
Once cold, remove from the cloth, unbind the tape, and secure with small skewers.
Optionally, glaze or rub with egg yolk and brown with a salamander for appearance.
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.
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Beef + porktop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Sugar + porktop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,579 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + beeftop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Saltpetre
- Gives the cured beef its pink colour and a characteristic cured flavour.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the salt in the pickle.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the long cure.
- Flank of beef
- Forms the main body of the dish, tenderised by curing and long gentle cooking.
- Slices of bacon
- Adds fat and savoury flavour to the filling as it renders during cooking.
- Slices of corned pork
- Adds salty, savoury flavour and fat to the filling.
The step that matters
Boil gently for 4 to 5 hours. A rapid boil toughens the meat and can break it apart. Keeping the water barely simmering lets the connective tissue soften slowly so the flank stays tender and sliceable.
“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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