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Beef Loaf

A loaf of ground beef mixed with eggs, crackers, butter, and spices, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Beef Loaf

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Beef 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).

Make and shape the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped beef, eggs, rolled milk crackers, butter, pepper, sage, cloves, cinnamon, and salt, then mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  2. Press the mixture into a loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, basting with butter occasionally.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sage + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Forms the bulk of the loaf and gives it a meaty, savoury body.
Eggs
Bind the meat and crackers together and help the loaf set as it bakes.
Milk crackers
Absorb moisture and help hold the loaf together while adding a little body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and promotes browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Mixing the meat thoroughly. Evenly distributing the eggs, crackers and seasoning through the ground meat helps the loaf bind and slice cleanly and keeps the seasoning consistent throughout.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, milk, butter, pepper, clove, cinnamon. 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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