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Beef Loaf

A loaf of ground beef and salt pork mixed with crumbs, eggs, and seasonings, baked and basted with butter and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Beef Loaf

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. 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 the loaf

  1. Grind the beef and salt pork using a sausage grinder.

  2. In a bowl, combine the ground meat with cracker crumbs, beaten eggs, salt, pepper, and sage. Mix well and pack tightly into a greased small bread pan.

  3. Sprinkle additional cracker crumbs over the top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2.5 hours, basting with melted butter mixed with boiling water.

  2. Allow to cool before slicing.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it its meaty flavour.
Salt pork
Adds fat, which keeps the lean meat moist during baking.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb juices and help bind the meat so the loaf holds its shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown as it bastes.

The step that matters

Packing the meat mixture. Packing tightly removes air pockets so the loaf holds together when sliced. Loose packing can leave it crumbly and uneven as the eggs and crumbs set during baking.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, egg, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, egg, pepper, butter. 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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