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Collared Beef

Collared beef is a cured and boiled beef prepared with saltpetre, pepper, sea salt, common salt, treacle, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Collared Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Mix saltpetre, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and common salt.

  2. Rub the mixture onto the beef and let it cure for 4 days, turning daily.

  3. After 4 days, add treacle and continue curing for another 4 to 6 days.

Prepare and cook

  1. Dip the beef in water, bone it, and skin the inside.

  2. Roll and bind the beef tightly.

  3. Place it in cold water and boil for 3.5 hours.

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. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Thin flank beef
Forms the main body of the dish, which is cured, rolled and boiled.
Saltpetre
Helps the beef keep its pink colour during curing.
Treacle
Adds sweetness and deep flavour to the cured beef.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during curing.

The step that matters

Rolling and binding the beef tightly. A loose roll can open up or unevenly cook during the long boil. Firm, even binding keeps the shape and makes slices hold together neatly.

“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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