Preparation:

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C: 350°F: Gas 4.

Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic, chop the parsley and sage.

Place all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly, using your hands. Place the mixture into a 900g (2lb) loaf tin, smooth the top and ensure the mixture is even.

Cover the top with a lightly oiled piece of kitchen foil (to prevent burning) or parchment paper folded to fit.

If not using a lean meatloaf pan, place the loaf tin into a large deep roasting pan, and add water so that it comes about half way up the side of the loaf tin.

Bake for 1½-2 hours, remove the kitchen foil for the final 20 minutes of cooking.

Note: There are many variations of this dish, using pork and beef, adding bacon, using different herbs, adding other vegetables, making it spicier. You can tailor it to suit your own personal tastes. One family favourite was to hard-boil and peel eggs and lay them lengthways along the middle of the loaf, for a nice surprise when the loaf is sliced. With the addition of eggs, you can even add puff pastry around the entire loaf (once it's baked -- and go heavy on pork as your main ingredient), bake that, cool it and slice it, for a mock-Melton Mowbray pie!

As a matter of interest, Isabella Mary Mayson (March 12, 1836 - January 1865), universally known as Mrs. Beeton, was the author of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management and is the most famous cookery writer in British history. Ironically, she did not cook!

Isabella was born at 24 Milk Street, Cheapside, London. Her father Benjamin Mason died when she was young and her mother Elizabeth Jerram remarried a Henry Dorling. She was sent to school in Heidelberg in Germany and afterward returned to her stepfather's home in Epsom.

On a visit to London, she was introduced to Samuel Orchard Beeton, a publisher of books and popular magazines, whom she married on 10 July 1856.

She began to write articles on cooking and household management for her husband's publications.

In 1859–1861, she wrote a monthly supplement to The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine.

In October 1861, the supplements were published as a single volume, The Book of Household Management Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, Butler, Footman, Coachman, Valet, Upper and Under House-Maids, Lady's-Maid, Maid-of-all-Work, Laundry-Maid, Nurse and Nurse-Maid, Monthly Wet and Sick Nurses, etc. etc. -- also Sanitary, Medical, & Legal Memoranda: with a History of the Origin, Properties, and Uses of all Things Connected with Home Life and Comfort. Whew!

After giving birth to her fourth child in January 1865, Isabella contracted puerperal fever and died a week later at the age of 28.

She is buried at West Norwood Cemetery under a simple headstone.

(This book is available as part of a large volume, as a reprint from 2007; to order Canadian title, click on book cover; to purchase U.S. editions click on name in text, below or at bottom.)

Beeton's Book of Household Management

Published in 1861, Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management was a guide to all aspects of running a household in Victorian Britain.

Its 2751 entries include tips on how to deal with servants' pay and children's health, and above all a wealth of cooking advice, instructions and recipes. It was an immediate bestseller, running to millions of copies within just a few years.

Perhaps surprisingly, author Isabella Beeton was just 21 years old when she started working on the book, and she died young at 28.

The book gives a charming and historically significant insight into Victorian domestic management.

Although its entries have little practical relevance today the name "Mrs Beeton" still has iconic status in Britain: most people recognize it and know its connotations, although very few have actually come into contact with the book itself.

The phrase, "first, catch your hare", while popularly thought to originate here, was already proverbial when the book was written.

Today's superstar chefs (especially Delia Smith) might be seen as the direct descendants of Mrs Beeton, who saw as they did the need to provide reassuring advice on culinary matters for the British middle classes, the Industrial Revolution having sealed the demise of traditional rural cooking skills.

A reprint version is available (in paperback) as Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book and Household Guide.

Difficulty level: Easy.