Meat Loaf, Optimized (Jesse Tries ALL the Tricks!)

Not the prettiest thing I've ever cooked, but hey, ugly food needs love, too.

 

Hi, everyone!  The other week, we did a discussion on meat loaf.  If you missed it, it's in this episode, along with stories about work place nicknames, and Nate and I comparing notes on Superbowl snacks.  But at any rate, during our meatloaf roundtable, a few helpful hints came to light.  I [Jesse], talked about how I liked using leftover biscuits as panade, instead of panko, or stale bread, or whatever.  Nate talked about how he liked to add sausage to his mix, instead of just ground beef, or the ubiquitous beef/pork mix, and about how if you mix some egg whites into the ketchup for a glaze, it makes a really nice, burnished layer.  We went back and forth for a while, and I pledged to make an ultimate meat loaf, using (or at least most) of the tricks Nate and I discussed.  

Well, I did it, it's done.  I started with my go-to meatloaf ratio, which is (I shit you not) the one from Sylvia's Soul Food Cookbook, but that I usually modify to be 2 parts beef, one part ground pork.  (Which is a nod to my grandmother's preferred mix of one part each ground pork, beef, and veal, but with the veal omitted, as Nate and I both agreed it's kinda pointless from a flavor standpoint, plus kinda expensive and hard to get your hands on.)   But Sylvia's ratio of meat to panade to aromatics to eggs is dead-on, and it's been my go-to since I was a teenager.  (A decent meat loaf is one of the first actual 'recipes' most blue collar American cooks learn to make, up there with sausage gravy, chilli, and clam chowder.)

Here is a list of principles I pledged to incorporate into my new, improved recipe:

-Replace the ground pork with sausage, which will improve flavor AND texture (due to the activated protein matrix, just go listen to the episode)

-Use ground biscuits as panade (I happened to have leftover buttermilk-and-lard biscuits from my recipe-testing session for Gift of Southern Cooking, for my recent review

-Sweat the aromatics, rather than putting them in raw (a technique borrowed from sausage making, it stops the onions from taking over the whole mix, as they have a way of doing)

-Use Nate's egg-white-ketchup glaze.  

The Recipe (Yes, I know I'm all over the place with units.  I was in the moment.  You should know standard and metric, and if your kitchen doesn't have a full set of measuring cups/spoons AND a digital scale, that's not my problem.)

Ingredients
Ground Beef                        2.25# 
Pork Sausage, Bulk             1#
Italian Sausage, Sweet         0.5#
Biscuit Crumbs                    2.5 C.
Eggs                                     6 whole + 1 yolk
Onions                                  3 small/600g
Celery                                  2.5 ribs/280g
Tomato Puree, Canned        9.5 Fl. Oz.
Milk                                    7.5 Fl. Oz.
Salt                                       1 T + 2 t
Pepper                                  1 t
Valentina Hot Sauce            2 t

Egg Whites                          2 each
Ketchup                               0.5 C

Method:
-Preheat oven to 350F, high fan if possible
-Mince celery and onions in the food processor
-Sweat veg in a hot, dry skillet until they become somewhat translucent (they will steam in their own juice), not more than 5 minutes, and cool
-Crumble meats into a large bowl
-Pour milk over biscuit crumbs and allow to hydrate at least 5 minutes
-Sprinkle salt over meats and mix them together with gloved hands, they should stay cold, and get tacky
-Add pepper, hot sauce, eggs, tomato puree, and vegetables to meat mix
-Add soaked biscuit crumbs and mix by hand
-Form into large, free-form loaf, 6-7" wide on a parchment-lined sheet pan
-Bake 10 minutes, to begin firming up the outside
-Mix whites and ketchup to make glaze
-Remove meatloaf and apply glaze liberally to all sides, and place back into oven
-Start checking it after 45 more minutes, you're going for an internal temperature of about 155-160.  It will carry up, but a little overcooking isn't a major issue

The Results:  Well, it's ugly, but hey, it's meatloaf.  It would look better if cooked in a loaf pan, but who has a loaf pan that will hold a 4#+ batch of meatloaf?  But how did the tricks work out?  Well, as expected, the biscuits made a fantastic panade, and the little chunks of moist biscuit that didn't get all the way incorporated were like little treats.  The sausage was a revelation.  The loaf held together better, and there was a great depth of flavor, without having to reach for little cheaters like Creole seasoning or Lawry's.  And the whites in the glaze?  Slick trick, Nate-Dogg.  It cooked up firm, so it stayed put, even when I was searing slices of this bad boy for sandwiches.

What I'd do different: Well, I followed my old Sylvia's recipe, and put a pan of water under the loaf in the oven.  I've done that every time, but I never really thought about why.  It doesn't really do anything.  If anything, it detracts.  I think Nate's ketchup glaze would have taken a little nice color if I'd skipped that step, and I will next time, although after splitting this monster loaf with only one other person (my normally pescatarian wife), I'm a little meat-loafed out for the time being.  By the same token, next time I make a loaf, I'm going to go with a hotter oven, at least 375.  Brown is beautiful, and I feel like this loaf could have used some more fire.

For a sick meat loaf sandwich:  Slice the loaf 3/4" thick and dust both sides with wondra.  Sear them in a hot pan in some butter.  Then, spread the BOTTOM side of a toasted burger bun with a little Duke's.  Top with a slice of seared loaf, and then a thick slice of raw white onion.  A little squirt of ketchup is optional, and that's a kick ass sammich you got there, soldier.

Seriously, guys, try this loaf.  Let me know if you have any bad ass variants.