Beef Loaf
Put 2 pounds of lean beef through a chopper, add 2 tablespoonfuls of finely chopped parsley, 1/4 of a cupful of fine stale bread crumbs, 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls of salt, ⅓ of a teaspoonful of pepper, 2 teaspoonfuls of lemon juice or vinegar, 1 teaspoonful of onion juice, 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter and I well-beaten egg. Work thoroughly together, mold into a loaf and lay on a greased pan. Bake in a hot oven for one hour, basting a number of times with butter and water; or the top of the loaf may be covered with thin slices of fat salt pork.
A plain free-form meat loaf from the era when a hand-cranked chopper had just made ground beef a household staple. Two details need attention: the oven is hotter than modern practice wants, and the seasoning is light by current tastes.
- The hinge: temperature, not timeA "hot oven" in period usage is roughly 400-450F, and an hour at that heat risks drying a 2 lb free-form loaf and hardening the crust before the centre is done. Bake at 350F and pull it at 160F on an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part, usually 50-60 minutes.
- Lean beef"Lean" here means genuinely lean trimmings, and with only 2 tablespoons of butter for fat this loaf can come out dry. Ground chuck at about 80/20 gives a better result; the salt pork blanket in the last line is the original's own remedy for the same problem.
- Onion juiceGrate half a small onion on the fine side of a box grater and press the pulp through a sieve, or squeeze it in a cloth. A teaspoon of juice carries the flavour without the water and texture of chopped onion.
- SaltThe amount as printed is ambiguous: "1/2 teaspoonfuls" with a plural noun suggests a dropped numeral and probably means 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls. If you read it as a bare half teaspoon, that is very light for 2 lb of meat; a teaspoon and a half of table salt, or two of kosher, suits modern seasoning, unless you are using the salt pork topping.
- Bread crumbsA quarter cup of dry stale crumbs is a small amount and this is close to an all-meat loaf. Soaking them in a couple of tablespoons of milk first makes a noticeably more tender crumb.
- BastingMelted butter thinned with water, brushed on every 15 minutes or so, keeps the exposed surface from hardening. On a free-form loaf this matters; in a loaf pan it does not, and you can skip it.
- Salt pork alternativeThin slices of fat salt pork laid over the top self-baste as they render. Streaky bacon does the same job and is easier to buy; overlap the slices and remove them for the last 10 minutes if you want colour on the loaf itself.
- YieldServes six, and it slices better cold the next day than hot from the oven.
Beef loaf of this kind belongs to the first generation of American recipes built around the domestic meat chopper, the clamp-on cast-iron grinder that spread through kitchens in the later nineteenth century and let a household turn cheap, tough cuts into something that could be shaped, stretched with crumbs and served in slices. The loaf takes the least expensive lean beef, bulks it with stale bread that would otherwise be wasted, and gets its lift from pantry seasonings rather than any costly ingredient. The lemon juice or vinegar is a period touch worth noticing, added for brightness against fatty meat. The salt pork covering is older still, a general roasting technique called barding that predates the recipe by centuries and was used on any lean joint that risked drying in the oven.