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Meat Loaf

A baked loaf of seasoned ground meat mixed with bread and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

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

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and shape

  1. In a large bowl, combine the ground meat, buttered bread, salt, pepper, sage, and eggs, then mix the ingredients well until fully combined.

  2. Press the mixture into a loaf shape and place it in a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until cooked through.

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 + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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

Ground meat
Forms the main body of the loaf and provides its savory, meaty flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Buttered bread
Absorbs moisture and adds softness, keeping the loaf from drying out.

The step that matters

Mixing the ingredients well. Thorough mixing spreads the eggs and bread evenly through the meat, so the binding is consistent. Uneven mixing can leave dry pockets or a loaf that crumbles when sliced.

Swap the sage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, pepper, 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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