Home › Luncheon Dishes › Meat Loaf (Lb veal ground eggs lb ham)
Meat Loaf (Lb veal ground eggs lb ham)
1 lb. veal, ground 2 eggs 1 lb. ham, ground 1 lb. beef, ground 1½ C bread crumbs 2 C milk Mix together, add 1 t baking powder and season to taste with sage, black pepper, parsley, onion and salt. Bake in moderate oven one to one and one-half hours.
Mrs. V. Woods.
A three-meat loaf of the type church cookbooks favored for luncheons, where it could be baked in advance and sliced cold. The proportions are sound; only the oven direction and the salt need attention.
- Oven temperature"Moderate oven" in books of this period generally means somewhere around 350-375F. The recipe allows one to one and a half hours; a loaf this size will likely want the longer end. Judge it by an internal temperature of 160F rather than by the clock.
- AbbreviationsC is cup, t is teaspoon. So 1½ cups bread crumbs, 2 cups milk, 1 teaspoon baking powder.
- Go easy on the saltA pound of ground ham brings a great deal of cured salt with it. Season the mix, then fry a teaspoon of it in a pan and taste before adding any salt at all.
- Two cups of milk is a lotThat is a very wet panade by modern standards and the mixture will look loose. Use dry crumbs, not fresh soft ones, and let the mixture stand ten minutes so the crumbs swell before you shape it.
- The baking powderIt lightens the crumb and gives a softer, more sliceable texture. It is not a mistake, but it also is not essential; leaving it out gives a denser, more terrine-like loaf.
- Ground vealNot standard at most supermarket counters now. Ask a butcher, or substitute ground pork, which shifts the flavor slightly richer but behaves the same way.
- Pan and shapeThree pounds of meat plus the crumbs and milk is more than a single 9x5 loaf pan comfortably holds; expect to divide it between two pans or use a larger one. It can also be shaped free-form on a rimmed sheet for more browned surface, which cooks a little faster.
- Yield and servingAbout eight to ten servings. As with most loaves of this kind it slices better cold than hot.
Meat loaf of this sort followed the spread of the mechanical meat grinder, which became common in American kitchens over the later nineteenth century and made it easy to combine cheap cuts and odd ends into something that could be sliced and served formally. A mix of veal, ham, and beef recalls the older pressed veal loaves and galantines, with the salted ham doing much of the seasoning work. Recipes credited to a named contributor, as this one is to Mrs. V. Woods, are characteristic of community-compiled collections, where a recipe's authority rested on the neighbor who vouched for it.