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Collared Beef

A preserved beef dish pickled in sugar, salt, saltpetre, and herbs, then boiled and cooled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 331 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Collared Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Choose fine, tender beef, but not too fatty.

  2. Lay it in a dish and rub in the sugar, salt, and saltpetre.

  3. Let it pickle for 7 to 10 days, turning and rubbing it daily.

Season and roll

  1. Bone the beef, removing all gristle and coarse skin.

  2. Sprinkle the inside thickly with parsley, herbs, and seasoning.

  3. Roll the meat tightly in a cloth and bind it with broad tape.

Cook and press

  1. Boil gently for about 6 hours.

  2. After boiling, place it under a weight without unwrapping until 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. Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 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 fine, tender texture is what the pickling and slow boil work on.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during the long pickling period.
Salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during pickling, helping preserve it.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness of the cure and adds gentle sweetness to the meat.

The step that matters

Boil gently for about 6 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and intact. Vigorous boiling toughens the protein and can break the roll apart.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, parsley, allspice, 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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