Skip to main content
Main

Meat Loaf

A baked loaf of minced beef and ham mixed with eggs, breadcrumbs, butter, onion, herbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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 oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine minced beef, minced ham, eggs, bread crumbs, melted butter, pepper, salt, chopped onion, and herbs, then mix all ingredients well.

  3. Press mixture into a brick-shaped tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover tin and place it in a pan of boiling water.

  2. Bake for 1.5 hours, ensuring the boiling water does not evaporate.

  3. Let it cool, then turn out and slice.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Beef or veal
Provides the main meaty body and structure of the loaf as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firm when heated.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and moisture, keeping the loaf tender rather than dense.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour and extra richness to the meat mixture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for moisture and a softer, richer texture.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath. Placing the covered tin in boiling water surrounds the loaf with gentle, even heat. If the water evaporates, the loaf cooks unevenly and can dry out or set too firmly at the edges.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, egg, bread, butter, 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.

More meat loaf recipes

Cold 4 See all 69 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes