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An Appetizing Meat Loaf

A gelatin-based meat loaf made with cooked meat, celery, red peppers, and seasonings, chilled and sliced before serving.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

An Appetizing Meat Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. Pour water into a saucepan, sprinkle in the gelatine, and dissolve over medium heat.

  2. Add the beef extract or bouillon cube.

  3. Let it cool.

Set and serve

  1. Stir in the celery, red peppers, salt, pepper, and chopped meat.

  2. Pour the mixture into a wet mold and refrigerate overnight.

  3. At serving time, turn out the meat loaf and cut into slices.

  4. Garnish with parsley.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable loaf that holds its shape when chilled.
Chopped cooked meat
Provides the main body and savory bulk of the loaf.
Beef extract or bouillon cube
Adds concentrated beef flavor to the gelatine liquid.
Chopped celery
Adds crisp texture and a mild vegetal crunch to the set loaf.
Sweet red peppers
Adds mild sweetness, color, and a little crunch.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully before adding the other ingredients. Gelatine only sets properly once fully dissolved in hot liquid. Undissolved granules leave weak, grainy spots, so the loaf may not hold together when sliced.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, pepper, meat):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, pepper, meat. 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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