Why it works: Nutmeg and summer savory share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 51 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
375 Beef Loaf
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop or mince the beef very fine.
Season the beef with pepper, salt, nutmeg, savory or marjoram, and minced onion.
Beat the eggs until light and mix them with the beef.
Press the mixture hard into a bowl.
Cook and serve
Fit an inverted saucer or plate on top and place in a pan of boiling water.
Cook slowly for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
After cooking, place a weight on top and let it cool completely before turning out.
Cut into perpendicular slices.
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.
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Nutmeg + summer savorytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together51 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together671 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Summer savory + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together299 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef
- Provides the main bulk and meaty texture of the loaf.
- Eggs
- Bind the minced meat so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
The step that matters
Cook slowly in the water bath. Gentle, low heat cooks the meat evenly and keeps it tender and moist. Rapid boiling can toughen proteins and dry the loaf, so the water should be kept at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, nutmeg, summer savory, egg):
- Capsicumfits better
- Chivefits better
- Spinachfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, nutmeg, summer savory, egg. 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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