Another meat loaf
Just when I thought my second honeymoon with the Silver Palate’s New Basics Cookbook was over and I was ready to go on with my life, faithful reader Marcy alerted me to a must-try meat loaf recipe. She said “It is seriously tasty…a bit more work than a standard meatloaf but the result is well worth the work!” I would definitely agree that this recipe was a lot more work than my usual meat loaf, which takes me about ten minutes to prepare, from start to finish, and I don’t use my hands to mix it. I spent two days on this loaf, chopping all the vegetables into tiny dice, sautéeing them in butter, chilling them; preparing and toasting fresh bread crumbs; liberating pork sausage from its casings, and then finding two enormous pans, one big enough to hold the other one so I could make a gerry-rigged (or is that “jury-rigged”) bain-marie.
A couple of further notes on the preparation: I diced the vegetables by hand because I don’t think you can get a good tiny, uniform dice in the food processor. If you don’t let it run long enough some of the pieces are too large, and if you run it longer you get purée. I did use the processor for the breadcrumbs, though. And the recipe calls for a baking time of 35-40 minutes, which in my opinion wasn’t nearly long enough for a meat loaf of this size, especially one with pork in it. I added about 15 minutes to the suggested time, and even at that was nervous that it might not be done when I saw pinkish juices begin to run out of it onto the platter as it was “resting”. All was well, though, upon slicing, when we were served with perfectly cooked, moist, and extremely tasty meat loaf.
Market Street Meat Loaf – 8 to 10 servings
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3/4 cup finely chopped onion
- 3/4 cup finely chopped scallions, white and about 3 inches of green
- 1/2 cup finely chopped carrots
- 1/4 cup finely chopped celery
- 1/4 cup each minced red and green bell pepper
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
- salt, to taste (I used about 2 teaspoons)
- 1 teaspoon ground pepper (freshly ground if you feel like breaking your arm)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper (I thought that was silly, plus didn’t have it so didn’t bother)
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (or any old ground nutmeg like most of us have)
- 3 eggs, well beaten
- 1/2 cup ketchup (not easy to find without high fructose corn syrup but can be done)
- 1/2 cup half&half
- 2 pounds lean ground beef chuck
- 12 ounces sausage meat (not sweet fennel-flavored sweet Italian although I don’t think it would go too badly with the nutmeg)
- 3/4 cup fine fresh bread crumbs, toasted (I toasted some old hamburger buns and ground them in the Cuisinart)
1. Preheat oven to 375º, although this is premature considering you will be chilling the vegetables for at least an hour.
2. Melt the butter in a heavy skillet, and add all the chopped vegetables including the garlic. Cook, stirring often, until the moisture from the veggies has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool; then refrigerate, covered, until chilled, at least 1 hour. I did this the night before.
3. Combine all the seasonings and eggs in a large mixing bowl and beat well. Add the ketchup and half&half and blend thoroughly.
4. Add the beef, sausage, and bread crumbs to the egg mixture in the bowl. Then add the chilled vegetables and mix thoroughly with your hands, kneading for 5 minutes.
5. With damp hands, form the mixture into an oval approximately 17 1/2 X 4 1/2 X 1 1/2 inches, resembling a long loaf of bread. I didn’t have a pan that long so my loaf was a bit shorter and wider which may be why it took longer in the oven; mine was also a little bigger.
6. Place the meat loaf in a baking dish, and place the dish inside a larger pan. Pour boiling water into the larger pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the inside dish. (I’m just now seeing the boiling part!)
7. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes but remember your time may be longer like mine was.
8. Remove the baking dish from the water bath, and let the meat loaf rest for 20 minutes in a warm place before slicing and serving.
Comments
This sounds delicious, but at this point in my life I have zero patience for chopping up so many veggies esp. waiting for them to chill. What would be the reason for chilling? With hungry kids chomping at the bit when it’s close to dinner time, I’ve found that by forming my meatloaf into an O shape, it takes approx. 25 mins. to bake. Grinding pepper is good exercise, but I’ve got to do my plug for Penzey’s spices (I am in no way affiliated with this company). My feeling is that they have the best pepper (as well as any other spice) imaginable and it’s wonderful to buy it in varying degrees of coarseness. I have slowly switched out every spice in my cabinet and am a loyal, loyal fan of Penzey’s.
It’s really the water-bath that puts it over the edge for me. I’m a fan of my no-nonsense meat loaf recipe, I don’t see myself chopping (and chilling) veggies and boiling water for this any time soon. But it does look tasty.
Yay! You made it! I haven’t made that recipe in quite a while (as you noted, it’s a pain) but it really is very good, more like a country pate you’d get at some tony food shop somewhere than the standard meatloaf. A side note on ketchup…the Heinz organic has no HFCS, and oddly enough, the regular Heinz ketchup made in Canada is made with sugar…not HFCS. I’ve talked to the CSRs at Heinz more than once about this but they won’t say why…
Was it better than your easy meatloaf? I’m tempted to try this. It sounds like such a good autumn meal.
It sounds delicious but I’m also curious about the chilled vegetables. Seems like an unusual direction.
Baking the loaf in a ring, what a great idea, Leonora! Do you put it in a bundt pan? You could put the whole thing in a water bath and wouldn’t need to find such a large outer pan that way.
I know what you mean, Kathryn, but Marcy got me interested and I did have some sausage in the freezer I wanted to use up. Plus, honestly, if not now, when I’m not working and don’t have small children underfoot like so many others, when?
Marcy, I have discovered the “organic” Heinz, but you can’t always find it. Whole Foods house brand ketchup also doesn’t have the HFCS, but I don’t know if I can get my family to eat it. I agree with you about the meat loaf, BTW, it is delicious, and different.
Anne, I’m not sure I liked it better than my easy meat loaf, but certainly as well. Everyone else at the table loved it. I think you’re in the same situation as I am right now, right? You have plenty of time to try new recipes, so why not? :)
Julie, I have no idea why the chilling of the vegetables, unless it’s something to do with getting them at the same consistency as the meat so they all mix together better? Maybe I should write to those engineers at Cooking for Engineers and ask them.
Fun. I am a sucker for new meatloaf recipes, and love to try them. I have a regular system I go back to for a simpler one, but it’s just appealing to see how many different ones effects you can get, just making a meatloaf. I sort of think of them all as being somewhere on a sliding scale between a pate and a giant hamburger.
One of my very favorites is the one in the first Marcella Hazen book, though it is something of a pain to make. I also kind of like doing corny things like putting a hard boiled egg or two inside a loaf, so each slice has a bull’s eye.Very Good Housekeeping-y.
I think the two primary characteristics of a good meatloaf are juiciness and sliceability, because there’s nothing to beat a meatloaf sandwich. Recently, I’ve discovered that buffalo makes a delicious meatloaf. It’s pretty lean though, like ground turkey is, so I add a lot of finely chopped veggies.
You’ve got me in a meatloaf frame of mind.
This is a fabulous recipe. I have been using this meatloaf recipe for years because my family loves it. Worth the extra effort!
You may have to chill the veggies, so as not to prematurely cook the meat and/or eggs.
hooray for finding this receipe. i left my cookbook at my lakehouse and have a son coming home tonight for whom this is his favorite “mom meal.” nothing compares to this winner. well worth the extra efforts!!
I have been making this meatloaf recipe for years and we love it and it is worth the effort. As for cooling the vegetables, I believe it is a bacteria/safety issue. Adding the warm vegetables to cold raw meat is probably comparable to adding warm stuffing to a cold raw turkey.
As for the sausage, you can buy sausage meat not in a sausage casing. Johnsonville sausage makes tasty sausage and offers its meat without the casing. I have made this with and without the water bath and I didn’t notice a difference, so now don’t do the bath.
Honestly, there really isn’t that much chopping as the portions of vegatables are not that large.
I think this is well worth the effort!
Cheryl
I’ve been making this meatloaf for my family and it’s awesome. Can simplify in the following ways:
- Use low-fat Jimmy Dean sausage in the tube (less fat and the taste is the same)
- Use one of those hand mini-choppers for the veggies; goes super fast
- Spread the hot veggies on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer; will cool in minutes
- Don’t bother w/ the water bath; adds nothing.
- Scrape off fat when meat loaf is done. I coat w/ a mix of ketchup, brown sugar, mustard. Throw under the broiler until it starts to bubble. Makes a nice coating.
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