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Mixed Meat Loaf

A loaf made from veal shank, sausage, bread crumbs, and sweet milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mixed Meat 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 meat

  1. Boil the veal shank until tender.

  2. Finely chop the meat.

Mix and shape

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped veal, sausage, milk, bread crumbs, and seasonings thoroughly.

  2. Form the mixture into a loaf shape.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until browned.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal shank
Provides the main meaty body, which sets firm as the loaf cooks.
Sausage
Adds fat and savory flavor, keeping the loaf moist and rich.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the meat so the loaf holds its shape.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and softens the texture of the crumbs and meat.

The step that matters

Boil the veal shank until tender. Veal shank is a tough cut full of connective tissue. It must soften fully before chopping, because undercooked tissue stays chewy in the baked loaf.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, milk, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, milk, pepper. 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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