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Beef Loaf

A loaf of ground beef and pork mixed with tomatoes, breadcrumbs, peppers, onions, salt, white pepper, and eggs, baked.

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

  1. Mix all ingredients together in the order given.

  2. Grease a baking pan and form the mixture into a loaf in the center, leaving space between the loaf and the pan.

Bake

  1. Optionally, add water to the bottom of the pan and baste the loaf several times, but it's better to bake with as little water as possible.

  2. Bake uncovered at 350°F (175°C).

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

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meaty body and structure of the loaf.
Lean pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the ground mixture from drying out as it bakes.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that flavour the loaf and keep it tender.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and help the loaf hold its shape while setting.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to hold the loaf together.

The step that matters

Bake with little or no added water. Extra water in the pan can steam the outside of the loaf instead of letting it brown and set, so the baked texture becomes softer and less defined.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, tomato, bread, pepper, onion, 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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