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Savory Beef Loaf

A loaf of seasoned ground beef mixed with breadcrumbs, milk, butter, egg, and spices, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Savory 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 the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped beef, cayenne, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, and lemon juice.

  2. Add the melted butter, bread crumbs, and beaten egg to the mixture.

  3. Pour in the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. Shape the mixture into a loaf and roll it in additional bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 minutes and serve hot, or slice and serve cold.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped beef
Forms the main body of the loaf and provides the savory, meaty flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help the loaf hold its shape while keeping it tender.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture, keeping the loaf from drying out as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Mix the sweet milk in well. Thorough mixing spreads the liquid, egg and crumbs evenly through the meat so the loaf binds and bakes with a consistent texture rather than crumbling or turning dense in spots.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, milk, butter, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, milk, butter, egg, nutmeg. 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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