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Beef Loaf

A loaf of minced round steak mixed with onion, bread crumbs, egg, parsley, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper, baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Beef Loaf

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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 bake the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine the minced round steak, chopped onion, bread crumbs, egg, chopped parsley, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mould the mixture into a loaf shape.

  3. Place the loaf in a baking dish and bake, basting occasionally, until cooked through.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Forms the main body of the loaf and provides the meaty structure once cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold its shape while it cooks.
Egg
Binds the meat and crumbs together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Onion
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Mould the mixture into a loaf shape. Meat mixtures with egg and crumbs are soft and can slump or crack if packed unevenly. Shaping them firmly and evenly helps the loaf hold together and cook at a uniform rate.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, parsley, lemon, 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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