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Meat Loaf

A baked loaf of finely chopped beef mixed with breadcrumbs, eggs, and seasonings, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Meat Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove the skin, gristle, and bone from the beef and chop it finely.

  2. Measure the meat and mix it with an equal quantity of bread crumbs.

  3. Add seasoning to taste and moisten the mixture with soup stock, milk, or water.

  4. Add one beaten egg for each pint of the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pack the mixture into a buttered brick loaf pan.

  2. Place the pan in a larger pan filled with hot water.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the loaf is firm in the center.

  4. Turn it out onto a hot platter and serve with tomato sauce or white sauce.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the loaf.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold together with a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it sets firm when baked.
Soup stock, milk, or water
Adds moisture so the loaf stays juicy rather than dry.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath until firm in the center. Surrounding the loaf pan with hot water moderates the heat so the outside does not overcook and dry out before the center sets. Eggs set as they reach firmness, so the loaf should be checked at the center rather than judged by time alone.

“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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