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Nut Loaf
2 cups soft bread-crums 1 cup milk 2 cups chopped nut-meats 2 eggs 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon paprika Soak bread-crums in milk, add nuts, slightly beaten eggs and seasonings. Turn into greased bread-pan, set in pan of water and bake forty minutes. Serve with tomato sauce. The loaf may be steamed instead of baked.
A plain baked nut loaf of the sort that stood in for a meat roast on meatless days. The original gives no oven temperature, so the two things to settle are heat and pan size.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; a moderate oven, 350F, suits it. Forty minutes at that heat sets the custard without drying the nuts.
- The water bath is not optionalSetting the loaf pan in a pan of hot water keeps the egg-and-milk binder from curdling and the outside from hardening before the centre sets. Fill the outer pan about halfway up the loaf pan.
- Soft bread-crumbsThis means fresh crumbs torn or grated from a day-old loaf, not dry packaged crumbs. Dry crumbs absorb far more milk and will give a dense, pasty loaf; if that is all you have, use about half the quantity.
- Pan sizeA period "bread-pan" was usually a small loaf tin, something in the region of 8 x 4 inches, though sizes varied. In anything much larger the mixture will spread thin and may bake through before forty minutes.
- NutsThe recipe specifies only "chopped nut-meats"; walnuts, pecans or peanuts all suit it. Chop them to the size of coarse gravel rather than grinding; ground nuts turn the loaf heavy and oily.
- PaprikaA full teaspoon would have been mild seasoning and colour, the paprika then sold generally being sweet rather than hot. Modern smoked or hot paprika at that quantity will dominate the dish.
- SteamingIf steamed rather than baked, cover the pan and allow closer to an hour. The texture comes out softer and more pudding-like, closer to a savoury steamed roll.
- Yield and servingEnough for about four as a main course. Let it stand ten minutes before turning out or it will crumble; the tomato sauce is what carries it, so make more than seems necessary.