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To Collar Beef

A method of curing flank beef with salt, spices, and saltpetre, then boiling and shaping it into an oval.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Lay the beef in a dish with salt and saltpetre, turning and rubbing it daily for a week.

  2. Remove bones and gristle, and skin the inside part.

Season and shape

  1. Cover the meat thickly with chopped parsley, sage, thyme, marjoram, pennyroyal, pepper, and allspice.

  2. Roll the meat tightly and bind it.

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

  4. Place under a weight while hot to shape it 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

Thin end of flank of beef
Provides the main meat that becomes firm and sliceable after curing and long cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the daily curing period.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green herbal aroma that brightens the rich beef.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 7 to 8 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and sliceable, while a hard boil toughens the muscle fibres and can break the roll apart.

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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