An Englishman’s Attempt to Make Meatloaf
I was browsing through a ‘four ingredient’ recipe book when I stumbled upon Meatloaf. I’ve tried to make this before, but ended up with a cake of hard and dry (ruined!) minced beef. Stereotypes tell me that everyone in America loves meatloaf, so I couldn’t help but assume that I had got it very wrong the first time.
So, I gave this one a go… but made a few adjustments to it as follows. You will need:
- 500g minced beef
- 1 onion
- 2 carrots
- 200g peas
- 200g sweetcorn
- 2 eggs
- salt and pepper
- 1 cup (1/4 stale baguette’s worth) breadcrumbs
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
I peeled my carrots and them put them through the grating attachment of my blender, followed by the peeled onion. You can just grate the carrot and finely chop the onion, but try it my way if you have the tools! Then, grate (with the blender!) a quarter of stale baguette or so and mix with the egg, 1tbsp purée, beef and all the vegetables. Add a generous amount of salt and pepper and mix in well.
The whole mix should be a little dry, and only stick if pressed to itself; the moisture will come from the vegetables as they cook. You need to spoon the mixture into a small bread tin, or similar, but not press it down. I think this was my mistake last time: fill all the gaps but do not compress the mixture. Then, spread the remaining purée over the top of the meatloaf.
Pop the dish into a preheated oven to 180′C for 50 minutes, and serve after allowing it to rest for a few minutes with fresh salad and bread, or pretty much anything else.
