BUILDING A BETTER MEATLOAF
Get the fat and starch right and the possibilities are endless
Can you believe it’s been four decades since “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”? I spent the better part of my Time Warp-ed college years dancing “just a jump to the left.” My real favorite song, though, was “Hot Patootie — Bless My Soul.” That’s the one that unleashed that remarkable singer, Meat Loaf.
Now, I’m pretty sure that Meat Loaf the chanteur was preceded by meatloaf the dish, but who can deny either’s profound impact on American culture?
WHY YOU NEED TO LEARN THIS: You may not be crazy about Meat Loaf, but, if you can’t make a good meatloaf, I question your commitment to American values.
THE STEPS YOU TAKE: This could easily be the shortest method ever: 1. Combine all your ingredients. 2. Bake until done. Of course, I’m way too chatty to leave it at that, so let’s start with the ingredients. First, there’s meat. Ah, but what kind of meat? You can make meatloaf out of just about anything that’s not extinct. Beef, veal, lamb, pork, turkey.
Regardless of the meat or combination of meats, you want your meatloaf to have the following two qualities: You want it to be moist, and you want it to be flavorful. Fortunately, both are easy to achieve.
To ensure a moist meatloaf, you need two things: fatty meat and an added starch. Lean meats, like ground turkey or 90 percent ground beef, can seem dry. Thus, I recommend either a fattier beef (like ground chuck) or adding some ground pork or minced bacon.
You’ll also need a starch, like breadcrumbs, uncooked oatmeal or what the French call a panade, a mix of torn-up bread and milk. You add starch because the more you cook meat, the more juice is squeezed out of it as the protein nets tighten. If your meatloaf were made out of meat alone, that juice would flow out of the meatloaf into the bottom of the pan, leaving it dry. The starch actually absorbs the juices, keeping your meatloaf moist.
If you’re using dried breadcrumbs or oatmeal, use about a third of a cup per pound of meat with an equal to slightly less amount of milk. If you’re using torn bread slices, use about a cup, soaked in a third of a cup of milk, per pound of meat.
Now for the other ingredients.
You’ll definitely need egg, roughly 1 per pound of meat. The egg helps hold the whole thing together, making it easier to slice without crumbling.
Next, your flavoring ingredients. Aromatic vegetables like onion, carrot, green pepper or garlic are lovely. Different chefs advocate variously for adding the ingredients raw or briefly sauteed. Raw is easier, although a brief sweating in oil or butter will bring added moisture to your meatloaf.
Other liquid ingredients like Worcestershire
or soy sauce, ketchup or barbecue sauce, add flavor along with moisture. The first two, being more concentrated, would be added in smaller amounts — a tablespoon per pound of meat — than the latter two, which could be added at maybe half a cup per pound.
Other ingredients include herbs, spices, various cheeses, rice, mashed potatoes — you name it. Remember, it’s your meatloaf.
No matter how you flavor you meatloaf, be sure to add enough salt. Salt brings out all those flavors. Without it, your meatloaf will be as sad and tasteless as a clown funeral. Add about a teaspoon for every pound of meatloaf, a teaspoon and a half if you’re using kosher.
Finally, you can mix all your ingredients in a bowl just long enough to bring it together into a homogenous mass.
Mold the mixture on a parchment- or foil-lined baking sheet, or press it into a loaf pan (9-by-5 inches), and bake in a 400-degree oven until it’s 165 degrees in the center, about an hour. Then, let it rest in its fat for about 10 minutes or so to allow any liquid to soak back.