Despite being baked, I don’t think meatloaf qualifies for the Learning 2 Bake from Scratch series. I have a lot of ground beef in the freezer, a bread heel every week, and we buy eggs by the flat. So why not more meatloaf? I’ve never been a big fan and it seems kind of silly: It’s just a big hamburger. Nonetheless, the idea occurred to me and I gave it a whirl.
I found an interesting looking – and very enthusiastic – recipe at recipetineats. It was good, although just a bit thyme-y. Replacing salt with bouillon is a great idea. I see no reason to use the good stuff – Better Than Bouillon(tm) – for something like this. The leftovers made great sandwiches. The loaf sliced very well. There was enough glaze leftover to brush a coat on each slice.
Meatloaf
From: https://www.recipetineats.com/meatloaf-recipe/
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 large onion , grated (brown, yellow)
1 kg / 2 lb ground beef (mince) , preferably not lean
2 eggs
3 garlic cloves , minced
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 cup tomato ketchup
1/4 cup chopped parsley (optional), or 2 tsp dried parsley or basil
1 tsp dried thyme
2 beef bouillon cubes , crumbled or 2 tsp beef powder
1 tsp black pepper
Meatloaf Glaze:
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
2 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp brown sugar , lightly packed
Before getting to the instructions, I want to point out the ingredient ordering problem: 1 tsp Worcestershire appears before the dry tsp ingredients. If my teaspoon has a film of sauce on it, I don’t want to stick it in the thyme, bouillon, or pepper containers. Wiping it off is not a huge deal, but if you measure everything in reverse order, there is no cleaning required. It’s also not a huge deal to reorder the recipe in one’s head, but why require the effort?
I’m sure panko is dandy, but I have lots of bread heels. I throw about half of them out; the other half I freeze for opportunities such as this. If this becomes a common thing, I can use them all. No waste is nice.
The first instruction is: Place breadcrumbs in a very large bowl. Grate over onion. Mix so the breadcrumbs are all wet. The justification is “why lose all that onion flavor sauteing them?” I think it’s a good point. Since I’m not starting with breadcrumbs, I’m changing that two: Feed bread heels into a food processor, pulsing until crumbs. Install grater. Feed in quartered onion.
I found out that garlic cloves are too small to grate well in the food processor and fresh garlic for this seems unnecessary, so 2 tsp garlic powder (I like garlic). I don’t like the idea of dumping the spices into a bowl full of damp bread. It seems as if they would clump. For example, all the pepper sticks to the bread it falls on rather than being evenly distributed. So, I’m redoing that, too.
One measuring cup. One teaspoon. However, my food processor container is not big enough to mix in the hamburger, so I’ve added that to the dirty dishes pile because I still need the large bowl to mix in the beef.
If the goal is to stretch the beef, I don’t think one cup of breadcrumbs is sufficient for two pounds of beef. The texture was good, but I’m going to try more, next time.
I used a glass loaf pan I had laying about because I didn’t want to scratch my non-stick bread pan when cutting the the meatloaf. Baking with glass is just awful. I don’t know why they even make baking containers out of an insulating substance. Don’t use glass – the edges don’t get crispy. So, for next time:
Meatloaf
Inspired by: https://www.recipetineats.com/meatloaf-recipe/
3 bread heels
1 large onion , quartered (brown, yellow)
2 eggs
1/4 cup tomato ketchup
2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup chopped parsley (optional), or 2 tsp dried parsley or basil
1 scant tsp dried thyme
2 beef bouillon cubes , crumbled or 2 tsp beef powder
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 lb ground beef, preferably not lean
Meatloaf Glaze – Mix together in a small bowl. Set aside.
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
2 Tbl vinegar (go wild: cider, red wine, malt, balsamic)
1 Tbl brown sugar , lightly packed
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Oil or spray a loaf tin – not glass.
Feed bread heels into food processor until crumbs. Install grater (leaving chopping blade). Feed in onion. In measuring cup, crack eggs and scramble. Measure in the ketchup. Add remaining ingredients. Mix. Pour into food processor, pulsing to mix. Place ground beef into large bowl. Empty food processor into bowl. Mix well using your hands. Form into a loaf shape, pinching together then smoothing over creases and cracks (helps prevent cracks during baking).
Transfer into loaf tin – not glass. Brush generously with glaze, using about 1/2.
Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and brush with most of the remaining glaze. If there is excess fat pooling, scoop/pour it off.
Bake for a further 30 minutes. Remove from oven.
Stand for 10 minutes before cutting into thick slices. (Turn it out of the pan, if you wish, but it can be messy due to the grease at the bottom.) You will probably get a bit of crumbling just on the edges of the first couple of slices, this is normal and indicative of the tenderness of the meatloaf (zero crumble indicates firm packed harder meatloaf which isn’t as enjoyable!).
Marked Up 