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Beef Loaf

A savory loaf made from finely chopped beef and pork mixed with crackers, egg, milk, butter, salt, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and shape

  1. In a large bowl, combine the beef, pork, rolled crackers, egg, milk, butter, salt, and sage, and mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a loaf pan and cover it.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1.5 hours, keeping it covered while baking.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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 rich meaty flavor of the loaf.
Pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the loaf from drying out as it bakes.
Rolled crackers
Absorb liquid and help bind the meat so the loaf holds together.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture that keeps the meat tender during baking.

The step that matters

Mixing the meat with the other ingredients. Mixing until everything is thoroughly combined spreads the egg, crackers and fat evenly through the meat, so the loaf binds and cooks uniformly rather than crumbling in patches.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, egg, milk, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, egg, milk, butter. 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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