Skip to main content
Main

Italian Meat Loaf

A loaf of ground beef and pork mixed with bread crumbs, onion, eggs, milk, Parmesan, salt, and pepper, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Italian Meat Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Grind the beef and pork together.

Mix and shape

  1. Combine the ground meat with bread crumbs, onion, Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the slightly beaten eggs and milk.

  3. Pack the mixture into a loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1.5 hours.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground beef
Provides the main meaty body and fat that keep the loaf juicy.
Ground pork
Adds fat and tenderness, so the loaf is less dry than all-beef.
Fine dry bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help the loaf hold together with a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it sets into a sliceable loaf when baked.
Milk
Adds moisture that softens the crumbs and keeps the meat tender.
Parmesan cheese
Contributes savory, salty flavor and some binding through its melted proteins.

The step that matters

Moistening and packing the mixture. Adding the eggs and milk gently and packing lightly keeps the loaf tender. Overworking ground meat develops proteins that toughen it, and too much packing makes a dense loaf.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, bread, egg, milk, pepper, parmesan cheese):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, bread, egg, milk, pepper, parmesan cheese. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes