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Beef or Veal Loaf

A loaf of ground beef or veal mixed with salt pork, crackers, isinglass, butter, spices, and eggs, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Beef or Veal 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef or veal, salt pork, crushed crackers, dissolved isinglass, butter, salt, pepper, cloves or nutmeg, and eggs.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.

  2. Let it cool before slicing.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground beef or veal
Forms the main body of the loaf and supplies much of its savory, meaty flavor.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the loaf moist and flavorful as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape and sets when baked.
Boston crackers
Absorb liquid and fat, keeping the loaf tender rather than dense.
Isinglass
Sets into a gel that helps the loaf hold moisture and cohere when cooled.

The step that matters

Mix well until thoroughly combined. Ground meat becomes firmer and more compact the more it is worked, so mixing only until evenly combined keeps the loaf tender rather than dense and rubbery.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, butter, pepper, egg. 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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