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To Collar Beef

A preserved beef prepared by salting, herb seasoning, and long boiling, then shaped and weighted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Collar Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Lay the beef in a dish with salt and saltpetre, turning and rubbing it daily for a week.

Prepare

  1. Remove all bones and gristle, and skin 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 with string.

Cook and shape

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

  2. Place the beef 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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  4. Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, and its connective tissue softens into tenderness during long gentle cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat deeply during the daily curing week.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat, preserving it and giving it a rosy colour.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and a light herbal flavour to the outside of the meat.
Sage
Contributes a savoury, earthy aroma that stands up to long cooking.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that season the meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 7 to 8 hours. At a gentle simmer, connective tissue breaks down slowly and the meat stays tender and intact. A hard, rolling boil toughens the proteins, tightens the meat and can break the roll apart.

Swap the allspice

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

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

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