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Cottage-Cheese and Peanut Loaf
½ cup peanuts
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup cottage cheese
Dash of pepper
1 cup cold, cooked rolled oats
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
Few drops Worcestershire sauce
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 tablespoon chopped onion
1 tablespoon fat
Chop peanuts and add to other ingredients in order given. When thoroughly combined, place in a well-oiled bread-tin. Bake in a sauce. moderate oven (350° F.) until brown. Serve hot with tomato
A meatless loaf of the 1920s type, bound with oatmeal and egg rather than breadcrumbs. It is straightforward to make; the main things worth knowing are what the ingredient list assumes and how long it actually needs in the oven.
- The last lineThe word "sauce" sits out of place in the final sentences: the ending reads bake in a moderate oven (350" F.) until brown, and serve hot with tomato sauce. Nothing is missing from the method.
- PeanutsUnsalted roasted peanuts, skins rubbed off, chopped fine rather than ground. Raw peanuts will taste flat and chalky here, since the loaf never gets hot enough to develop roast flavor.
- Cold cooked rolled oatsA cup of leftover cooked oatmeal, not dry oats. Roughly 1/2 cup dry rolled oats cooked in water and cooled will give about the cup called for; it should be stiff enough to hold a spoon shape, not soupy.
- Cottage cheeseCottage cheese of the period was often a drier curd than the modern product; today's small-curd cheese can carry a good deal of liquid, so draining it in a sieve will keep the mixture from going too loose -- bearing in mind the recipe already adds a cup of milk.
- The fatOne tablespoon of butter, drippings or shortening, melted and stirred in. It is there for moisture and browning, not for frying the onion, which goes in raw.
- TimingThe recipe gives no time. In a 4x8-inch loaf pan at 350°F expect 45 to 60 minutes; the loaf is done when the center reaches 160°F and the top is well browned. Let it stand 10 minutes before slicing or it will crumble.
- Poultry seasoningA blend usually built on sage and thyme, doing the work of imitating a meat loaf. A teaspoon is assertive in a loaf this size; a half teaspoon may suit modern palates better.
- YieldServes three to four as a main course. It slices better cold than hot, and reheated slices browned in a skillet are arguably better than the first serving.
Nut-and-grain loaves like this came into American cookbooks through the vegetarian cooking of the late nineteenth-century health movement, particularly the Seventh-day Adventist sanitarium kitchens associated with Battle Creek, Michigan, where peanuts and cereal grains were promoted as substitutes for meat. By the time this collection was printed, the form had been thoroughly domesticated: a vegetarian dish in a mainstream household book aimed less at doctrinal vegetarians than at housekeepers economizing on meat, a habit reinforced by the meatless-day campaigns of the First World War. The recipe's logic is of its moment, with the poultry seasoning and Worcestershire sauce standing in for the flavor of the roast the loaf replaces, and cottage cheese and peanuts supplying protein more cheaply than beef.