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To Collar Beef

A beef collar cured with saltpetre, salt, sugar, spices, and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Collar Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Bone the beef and remove the skin.

  2. Mix saltpetre, salt prunella, coarse sea salt, coarse sugar, and white salt; beat the hard salts fine.

  3. Rub the mixture on the beef and turn it every day for 8 days.

  4. After 8 days, wash and dry the beef.

Season and roll

  1. Sprinkle cloves, mace, allspice, nutmeg, pepper, parsley, and sweet herbs on the beef.

  2. Roll the beef tightly and wrap it in a coarse cloth, tying it securely with tape.

Boil, press and serve

  1. Boil in a large pot of water for 5 hours for a small collar or 6 hours for a large collar.

  2. Remove from water and press until cold, using boards and a weight if necessary.

  3. Unwrap and slice the beef, garnishing with raw parsley.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Beef
Forms the body of the dish, and its texture firms as it is cured and cooked.
Saltpetre
Gives the cured beef its pink colour and helps preserve it during the long cure.
White salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the curing period.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness and softens the harsh edge of the cure.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the outside of the beef.

The step that matters

Boil for the correct time. Boiling time depends on the collar's size, and too short a boil leaves the centre undercooked while too long makes the meat dry and tough. Pressing while still warm and then cooling gives a firm, sliceable texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, clove, corn, allspice, nutmeg, 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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