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To Collar Beef

A method of curing beef with salt, saltpetre, herbs, and spices, then boiling and shaping into an oval.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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.

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

Season and roll

  1. Cover the meat thickly with the chopped herbs and spices.

  2. Roll the meat tightly and bind it securely.

Cook

  1. Boil gently for 7 to 8 hours.

Wrap and shape

  1. Wrap the meat 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
Provides the main meat that firms and becomes sliceable as it cooks and cures.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the week-long cure.
Saltpetre
Helps the cured meat keep a rosy colour and resist spoilage.
Sage
Adds a savoury, earthy herbal aroma to the outside of the meat.
Allspice
Adds warm, clove-like aroma that flavours the meat.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green herbal note that brightens the rich meat.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 7 to 8 hours. A slow, gentle simmer lets the connective tissue in the flank break down slowly, leaving the meat tender. A hard rolling boil toughens the meat and can make it fall apart.

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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