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Baked Meat Loaf Recipes

A loaf made from veal and ham trimmings mixed with corn flour, spices, and butter, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 731 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Baked Meat Loaf Recipes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Cook the veal and ham trimmings until tender.

  2. Chop the cooked meat finely.

Season and shape

  1. Add corn flour, salt, sage, white pepper, sugar, cloves, and thyme to the chopped meat.

  2. Mix thoroughly.

  3. Add enough soup to achieve the desired consistency.

  4. Chill the mixture, then shape it into a loaf.

  5. Place the loaf in a bread pan and press down firmly.

Bake and baste

  1. Brush the top with beaten egg and baste with melted butter during baking.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 to 2½ 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. Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Corn + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together712 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Corn + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Flour + sagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main meaty structure that holds the loaf together when cooked.
Ham trimmings
Adds savory flavor and fat that keeps the cooked meat from drying out.
Corn flour
Absorbs liquid and binds the chopped meat so the loaf holds its shape.
Egg (in the method)
Helps bind the top layer and gives the surface a golden, browned color.

The step that matters

Chilling the mixture before shaping. Cold chilling firms the fat and binders so the loaf holds its shape when pressed into the pan and sliced after baking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, corn, flour, sage, sugar, clove):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, corn, flour, sage, sugar, clove. 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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