Meatloaf

Meatloaf is a classic, easy to do recipe... much like a big meatball. Depending on the meat used, it takes a different kind of bread binders or crumbs.

Meatloaf

Preheating the oven to the highest temperature to give a head start. The heart of the meatloaf is what mixes to be included. Too much meat and I will be tough, too many crumbs and it will be soft and fall apart. Aside from the meat and crumbs are other flavors such as onion and garlic. 

Onion is fine diced as well as the garlic, not too fine as a little texture can be good. An extra to the loaf is some diced mushrooms as well. The ration should be 1:1:2 with crumbs, vegetables and meat respectively. This helps with a good firm texture on the meatloaf. 

I prefer not to use so much salt into the mix as I prefer using more aromatic vegetables to enhance flavor more than seasonings. Wet ingredients are only eggs, little soy sauce(or Worcestershire) to help with the mixing and moisture. I had a dry basil herb that I added for fragrance. 

I buttered the baking loaf pan, layered quick blanched spinach( just like I did for the scrambled eggs for the previous recipe. Fill the meat filling and fold over the spinach to cover, place into the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes to seal the loaf and turn down the heat to about 300 for about 20 minutes to keep it from drying up. 

The garnish and sides are fairly simple. With steam rice molded in a ramekin, seasoned with a little salt and pepper and seared in butter to give a crust. A sweet onion simply roasted on the pan with salt pepper and a little bit of sugar to caramelize it. Sliced mushrooms that are also roasted on the pan with salt pepper. The cheese wafer was from a Parmesan block that I had, finely shredded onto a dry and hot non-stick pan until it melts and binds together slowly, flip over to give a little color on the other side and take off the heat to cool. 

The sauce was a simple trial experiment I did a while back. It was chicken stock(or any other kinds of stock), simmer to reduced to half, add a little ketchup for acid and body as it thickens the sauce. Taking it off the heat and whisk in some butter.