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To Collar Beef

A beef collar seasoned with salt, herbs, and spices, boiled, and hung to cool.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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

Prepare

  1. Rub the beef with coarse sea salt and saltpetre, turning it daily for a week in a cool place.

  2. Remove all bones and gristle, and skin the inside part of the beef.

  3. Cover the beef thickly with the chopped herbs and spices.

  4. Roll the beef tightly and bind it with tape.

Cook

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

  2. Place a weight on the beef while hot to shape it oval.

  3. For added flavor, you can include a rolled piece of veal with the beef.

Serve

  1. After boiling, let it cool and hang it up to eat cold.

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 connective tissue softens during long, gentle boiling.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it keep a pink colour and a cured flavour during the week of rubbing.
Suet
Adds fat, which gives richness and moisture to the lean meat.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herb flavour to the outside of the rolled beef.

The step that matters

Keep the boil gentle and steady. A rapid boil can toughen the meat and loosen the rolled shape. Long, low heat lets the connective tissue soften slowly, so the beef stays tender and holds together.

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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