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Meat Loaf

A baked loaf of ground beef and pork mixed with eggs, bread crumbs, sage, onions, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Meat Loaf

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 mixture

  1. Grind the round steak and fresh pork using a meat chopper. Mix in the sage, salt, and pepper.

  2. Moisten the bread crumbs in milk or water and add them along with the chopped onions to the meat mixture. Add the well-beaten eggs and combine thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Form the mixture into a loaf and place it in a roasting pan. Add a little water to the pan. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for two 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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

  5. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Provides the main meaty body and structure of the loaf.
Fresh pork
Adds fat, which keeps the loaf moist and tender as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Dry bread crumbs
Soak up moisture and help keep the loaf tender rather than dense.
Onions
Add moisture and a mild sweetness as they soften during baking.

The step that matters

Combine the mixture thoroughly. Mixing the meat, crumbs, onions and eggs evenly spreads the binder through the loaf, so it holds together when sliced instead of crumbling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, sage, bread, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, sage, bread, 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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