Meat Loaf

bybrucemott

175 followers

Updated 10 years ago

Meatloaf

Last night I made meatloaf. There have to be a zillion recipes for meatloaf. The really fun thing about meatloaf is that it is a great vehicle for adding just about anything as an ingredient. I think just about everybody starts out with the onion, bell pepper, celery, egg, bread crumb and tomato sauce treatment. From there the variations abound.

As far as the meat part of it goes, there are options as well. Numero uno you can start with grinding your own ground beef. If you have the time and the spirit of Emeril Legasse, grinding chuck steak into ground beef will kick your meat loaf up a notch. The really Cheffy types like to use a combo of ground beef, pork and veal which tastes really good, but moves away from one of the reasons meat loaf was invented. It’s cheap.

I’m not going to bore you with an elaborate recipe for meatloaf. Unless someone out there that has never made a meat loaf or never made a successful meat- loaf needs some help, we’ll stick with some basics and offer a couple of suggestions.

The Basics

1 lb. ground beef (fat percentage of your choosing)

Suggestion: 1 lb. ground mild pork sausage (hot if you walk on the wild side). If all you can find are pork links, it helps a lot if you remove the casing. But you knew that didn’t you.

Onion, celery and green bell pepper all chopped up. You know the drill.

Suggestion: Use Panko bread crumbs for a slightly different dimension.

Twist: I’ve actually successfully used instant mashed potatoes instead of bread crumbs once. Now they come all flavorized. Not hugely better but definitely different.

Egg and tomato sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Remove the bling and get after it.

Catsup/Ketchup to finish. You know what to do.

If your out there saying, “ha…he left out the worchestershire”. Please. By all means. Some things are traditional.

A couple more ideas

When you're about to load up your baking dish and go to the oven make a change. Line your baking dish with plastic wrap. Pack your meatloaf in. Turn the baking dish upside down on a foil lined sheet pan. Remove the dish from the meatloaf. Now you can go to the oven for 1 hour at 350º and about half way through add the finishing catsup/ketchup. If you like crispy catsup/ketchup crank your oven up to broil for a couple of minutes. Viola!

And finally.....meatloaf is a great place to hide spinach!