Skip to main content
Main

Beef Loaf

A boiled loaf of seasoned ground beef mixed with eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Beef Loaf

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 ↓

Beef Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the beef finely or have your butcher do it.

  2. Season the beef with pepper, salt, nutmeg, savory or marjoram, and minced onion.

  3. Beat the eggs lightly and mix them into the beef mixture.

Cook

  1. Press the mixture hard into a bowl.

  2. Place an inverted saucer or plate on top and set the bowl in a pan of boiling water.

  3. Cook slowly for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Cool and serve

  1. After cooking, place a weight on the surface and let it cool completely before turning it out.

  2. Slice into perpendicular pieces.

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. Nutmeg + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Summer savory + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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 body and meaty texture of the loaf.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Minced onion
Adds savory flavor and moisture to the meat.

The step that matters

Cook slowly in the water bath. Gentle, moist heat cooks the meat through while keeping it tender. Boiling hard or cooking too fast can toughen the proteins and make the loaf dry and crumbly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, nutmeg, summer savory, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. 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.

More beef loaf recipes

Spiced 9 See all 201 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipesBeef CroquettesBeef Croquettes58 recipes