A recipe for dreaded meat loaf
The time has come!
A couple of years ago, when writing about hamburger and rice, a depression-friendly dish alá meat loaf, I threatened that there would be more on meat loaf and how I hate it “at a later date.” Well, that date has come: I have made the meat loaf that was coming for me, and lived to tell the tale.
The scene was right, or as right as it ever was going to be. Meat loaf has been circling me lately—Patti Ann’s, which I haven’t been to but have read much about, has one on the menu. As others have remarked, we’re in a comfort food era and an “everything costs a ton” era. Meat loaf was not my comfort food as a child, which, as Jackson pointed out as we ate this one, is funny though makes sense: it’s basically the same thing as a burger, and yet is so much less appealing.
It was most likely the peppers and onions—I was the kind of kid who would order the Happy Meal with pickles but remove them before consuming because I liked the flavor but didn’t actually want to eat the pickles—that made meat loaf untouchable for me, and I guess that prejudice has remained. But this time, when considering whether to include them or not, I felt like I had to go for it: the “optional” listed here were clearly for my picky eater self, and I am an ADULT now.
At the store, I had planned to pick up just beef, but many recipes suggest a combination of beef/pork/veal. And look at that, the grocery story had a “meat loaf mix” of beef and pork available, and I thought that flavor profile would be more fun. Once home, I diced a yellow onion, a red pepper, and a few Baby Bella mushrooms—I prefer the weirder kinds of mushrooms, but for something like this, basic seemed fine. This recipe does not suggest you cook those ingredients beforehand, but I decided I definitely should, so I sautéed them in a little olive oil until they were soft and on their way to browned.
I think I’d also been intrigued by meat loaf because Eric Kim’s cookbook, which I’ve yet to make a thing out of that doesn’t rock, has a recipe for Meatloaf-Glazed Kalbi with Gamja Salad, and it sounded so good. I decided even though I wasn’t making the Kalbi this time, I’d do his Gamja salad, which is a cross between mashed potatoes and potato salad with some vegetables in it, most usually cucumber.
Anyway, back to the meat loaf. I threw some crushed saltines that have been sitting around for awhile in with the mixed meats, egg and ketchup (“Catsup”) and tried not to squish it too much—I guess meat loaf is supposed to be differentiated from a hamburger patty by having more texture. Then I added some dashes of Worcestershire sauce—because isn’t meat loaf supposed to have that?—and some salt and pepper because it was insane to me that none was included in this recipe, even if there was salt in the saltines.
After that, I mixed in the cooked down vegetables with a fork, and squished it into a loaf pan because that seemed easier than shaping it as a loaf myself. A drizzle of more ketchup and Worcestershire on top and into the oven it went.
About 50 minutes later, it was done. I think there were too many peppers, or maybe I had been lazy about dicing them small enough, but the consistency was nice and I liked slicing the loaf of meat. There was certainly a lot of moisture on top that had been released that maybe would have dissipated had I put it in the glass pan as suggested—who cares. The classic meat loaf paired with the Gamja salad was perfection; the salad was wildly tasty. I had my second slice of the meat loaf with a little dipping ketchup for old time’s sake, and have already cast aside whatever prejudices I had against this dish to the follies of childhood part of my brain.
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