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To Collar Beef

A preserved beef prepared by salting, herb seasoning, and slow boiling.

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

  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 meat.

  2. Cover the meat thickly with the chopped herbs, pepper, salt, and allspice.

  3. Roll the meat tightly and bind it securely.

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 into an 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, and its muscle fibres become tender with long, gentle cooking.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat, keeping its colour pink and giving it a cured flavour.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma that lightens the rich meat.
Sage
Adds a warm, earthy aroma that complements the beef.
Thyme
Adds a savoury, aromatic note that carries through the long cooking.
Allspice
Adds warm, sweet-spicy aroma to the meat.

The step that matters

Place the beef under a weight while hot to shape it into an oval.. Pressing while the meat is still hot lets it take an oval shape as it cools. Fats and gelatin set as it cools, so the shape is held once cold.

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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