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To Collar Beef

A cured flank of beef wrapped with bacon, corned pork, herbs, and spices, then boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

To Collar Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Make a pickle with ¾ cup brown sugar, ½ cup common salt, and ⅓ cup saltpetre.

  2. Take a flank of beef and leave it in the pickle for 10 days, turning it daily.

Prepare the flank

  1. Remove the bone and gristle, leaving the outer skin on.

  2. Place the beef skin-side down and beat the inside with a rolling pin until tender.

  3. Score the flesh in rows, about 2 fingers apart, without cutting the skin.

  4. Fill the scores alternately with slices of bacon, corned pork, chopped herbs, and spices.

  5. Roll the flank tightly and bind it with coarse broad tape.

Cook and finish

  1. Wrap it in a cloth and boil gently for 4 to 5 hours, depending on the size.

  2. Once cold, remove from the cloth, unbind the tape, and secure with small skewers.

  3. Optionally glaze or rub with egg yolk and brown with a salamander.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Sugar + porktop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + beeftop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef flank
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender after curing and long gentle cooking.
Brown sugar
Balances the salty cure and adds a mild sweetness to the meat.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the curing period.
Saltpetre
Helps the cure keep the meat pink and adds to its characteristic cured flavour.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the filling as it renders during cooking.
Corned pork
Adds salty, savoury flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Boiling gently for 4 to 5 hours. A rolling boil can toughen and break up the meat and fill, while gentle simmering lets collagen soften slowly, leaving the roll tender and sliceable.

“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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