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Meat Loaf, From Beef, Veal, Mutton, or Ham, Left Over

A loaf made from chopped leftover meats, onion, soaked bread, eggs, pepper, and salt, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Meat Loaf, From Beef, Veal, Mutton, or Ham, Left Over

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. Chop all leftover meats and onion finely.

  2. Soak bread in milk, then press out excess milk.

Make and bake the loaf

  1. In a bowl, mix chopped meats, soaked bread, eggs, pepper, and salt.

  2. Shape mixture into a loaf.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve with mashed or fried potatoes.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover meats
Provide the main body and savory flavor of the loaf.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Dry bread soaked in milk
Adds moisture and keeps the loaf tender rather than dense.

The step that matters

Pressing out excess milk from the bread. Too much liquid makes the loaf wet and loose, so it may not hold its shape or cook evenly. Squeezing the soaked bread keeps the moisture balanced.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, milk, egg, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, milk, egg, 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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