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Beef Loaf
Mrs. Carson.
Three and a half pounds veal or beef, minced very fine, and uncooked; four large crackers, crushed very fine; one egg, one cup of milk, butter the size of an egg, one tablespoon salt, one of pepper; mix in shape of a loaf, and bake in a slow oven two hours and a half, basting often; to be eaten cold; very nice for tea or lunch.
A Victorian meatloaf meant to be baked slowly, cooled, and sliced thin for the tea table. The measurements are workable, with two exceptions worth catching before you start.
- That tablespoon of pepperA full tablespoon of ground black pepper in a 3½ lb loaf is fiercely hot by current taste. A teaspoon or two is closer to what most people now want; the tablespoon of salt is about right for this weight of meat.
- A slow ovenRead this as about 300F (the term is usually glossed anywhere from 275 to 325F). At the low end a loaf of this size will take the full two and a half hours, which is the point — slow baking keeps a coarse-ground loaf from squeezing out its juices and turning crumbly.
- Cook to temperature, not timeGround meat should reach 160F at the centre. Check with a thermometer rather than trusting the clock, since the shape you mould by hand will bake differently from anyone else's.
- Butter the size of an eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. Soften it and work it through the meat rather than adding it in a lump.
- Four large crackersNineteenth-century "crackers" were plain hard soda or water crackers, much bigger and drier than a modern saltine. Use about ¾ to 1 cup of fine dry cracker or plain breadcrumbs, enough to bind with the egg and milk without making the mixture pasty.
- Basting a loafWith no pan liquid to start, put the loaf in a shallow dish, dot the top with a little extra butter, and baste with whatever fat and juice collects. If it stays dry, add a few tablespoons of water or stock to the pan; a bare loaf at 300F for 2½ hours will crust hard on top otherwise.
- Veal or beefVeal gives the pale, close-textured loaf the recipe is aiming at and is worth asking the butcher to grind. Beef works but should not be too lean — around 80/20 — or the cold slices will be dry.
- Cooling and yieldCool completely, then chill several hours under a light weight; the loaf firms up and slices cleanly, which is why it is specified "to be eaten cold." Serves 8 to 10 as a lunch or tea dish.
Cold moulded loaves of minced meat were a staple of the late-nineteenth-century American tea table, where the meal was a light spread of sliced things eaten without carving or serving hot. This is a recipe built around the meat grinder, which spread through American kitchens over the later nineteenth century and made "minced very fine" something a cook could do at home rather than chop by hand for an hour. The Home Cook Book, published in Chicago in the mid-1870s and compiled from recipes contributed by named local women, is among the earliest American community cookbooks of its kind — hence "Mrs. Carson" attached to the recipe, a form of credit that also served as a guarantee it had been made and eaten. Veal was favoured for such loaves because its mild flavour and gelatinous set held a slice together cold, the same quality that made it the base for pressed and jellied meats throughout the period.