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Baked Meat Loaf

A loaf of cooked meat mixed with crumbs or rice, bacon, seasonings, and a moistening agent, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Meat Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pass the cooked meat through a meat chopper.

  2. Mix in the bread or cracker crumbs, or rice, or mashed potato, and minced bacon.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, lemon juice, and kitchen bouquet.

  4. Moisten the mixture with cream sauce or egg and stock or water until it can be shaped into an oval loaf.

Bake

  1. Make deep incisions across the top of the loaf and lay in strips of fat bacon.

  2. Grease a baking pan and place the loaf in it.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until browned on top.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 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

Lean cooked meat
Forms the body of the loaf and gives it its main flavor.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold its shape rather than crumbling.
Minced bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that keeps the loaf moist as it bakes.
Cream sauce or egg and stock
Binds the mixture together and adds moisture so it can be shaped.
Fat bacon strips
Basts the loaf with fat as it bakes, promoting browning and flavor on top.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. If the mixture is too wet it will be slack and fall apart; too dry and it will crumble. Add the liquid gradually until it holds a shape when pressed together.

“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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