On any given day, I probably browse through at least 100 different blogs. Fortunately, Google Reader makes this practical as it allows me to organize and look for interesting new posts without the need to individually visit every interesting site on my “favorites” list.
Since I am a self-proclaimed “foodie”, I follow a few sites that focus on food. Some of my favorites are:
It was the last one on the list – the Amateur Gourmet – that caught my attention with a recent post regarding a meatloaf.
Now, about meatloaf. If there is one food (other than your typical Midwest hotdish) that I remember growing up, it was meatloaf. For my mother, this was a staple for supper at least once per week. It’s not that we were poor and needed to stretch out the beef we could afford (as all meatloaf are born from – why else load up good meat with a bread and egg filler?). It’s just that the flavor was easy to appease the whole family. Plus, it was such a staple in the region, we never thought anything of having it so frequently.
The Amateur Gourmet featured a recipe from the well-known Craft Restaurant in New York. This was very intriguing to me, as Craft is known for taking many of the classic American food staples and bringing a level of perfection into them. I was dieing to try the recipe at home. Below is how it all came together (with the detailed recipe at the bottom).
The prep work started by making a soffrito - which is simply a long, slow cook of the classic onion, celery, and carrot that is a standard base to a lot of classic recipes.
Sweating these down takes a fair amount of olive oil and a lot of time - mine cooked in the pan for well-over one hour.
The second major prep activity was to take some shiitake mushrooms and cut them down to thin slices.
These are sauteed in some butter until they lose a lot of their moisture and just start to brown.
The third and final prep work centered around the breadcrumbs. I chose some Panko crumbs and added a little olive oil to the same pan that cooked the mushrooms (hopefully picking up a little extra flavors).
The crumbs only took a few minutes to get nice and toasty - with hints of dark brown delicious goodness.
All this time, the soffrito was cooking down and took on a nice, caramel color.
With the basic preparation complete, my next step was simple assembly. You can't get much easier than a meatloaf - as all the basic ingredients are dumped into the same bowl and gently combined. Note that fresh oregano is a must, so try to find some before whipping out the dried stuff in your spice cabinet.
In the video on the Amateur Gourmet site, they show how to easily shape the meatloaf both for presentation and even cooking using plastic wrap. Once ready, it's placed on a baking sheet with parchment paper and tossed into the oven at 350deg.
While the loaf was cooking, I whipped up the sauce and had it ready to apply to the top of the loaf for the last 15 minutes of cooking time.
The final loaf came out of the oven right at the expected time - with approximately 45 minutes of cooking. I always use a thermometer when cooking meat so I am careful not to either under or over cook it.
Once it rested for about 20 minutes to cool down and let the internal juices find their home inside the loaf, I was able to enjoy my slice with a nice Petite Sirah from Ravenswood.
How was it? I can only say that it was perfect. It captured everything that you would expect in a meatloaf. It used all the classic ingredients and provided the flavor that you would want to see from a meatloaf. It wasn’t exotic, yet it was nicely balanced in how the sauce complimented the flavor of the meat.
The sauce is a little spicy, so if you attempt to make the recipe, you may want to watch how much cayenne pepper you load into the sauce. As the recipe states, it’s a good balance. But, be sure to taste the sauce before it goes onto the meat to ensure it matches expectations. The addition of the soffrito and shiitake mushrooms offer a subtle, but obvious critical component to the meat itself. Thus, I would encourage you to go light on the sauce, so you get these flavors to come through and not be overwhelmed with a ketchup-based sauce.
This is a great meatloaf recipe, not because it offers some exotic flavors never before experienced. Instead it tastes exactly like you’d expect meatloaf to taste – only with the perfect level of polish to make it REALLY good. It’s not a quick meal to make, as I started it at 3pm and was ready to eat around 6:30pm. But, the preparation work on the soffrito, breadcrumbs, and mushrooms are the things that set this apart and should not be skipped.
Here is the recipe if you are going to try it yourself:
Damon’s Favorite Meatloaf
by Chef Damon Wise
serves 6
1 ¾ lbs ground beef
¾ lbs ground pork
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup dark soffrito [Note: cook red onions, carrots and celery in lots of olive oil on low heat until it's all a deep, golden brown: 45 minutes to 1 hour. Whatever you don't use, you can keep in olive oil and use in soups, dressings, sandwiches, etc.]
½ cup toasted bread crumbs, soaked in milk
1 ½ shiitake mushrooms, sautéed
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
2 t soy sauce or tamari
2 T dry mustard
2 t fresh oregano, chopped
2 large eggs
GLAZE
2 cup ketchup
¼ cup soy sauce
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T honey
2 T smoked paprika
1 t cayenne
350° for 45 minutes ( 160° internally ) – after 30min, add glaze and finish the rest of the 15 min back at 350°
If you’d like to see this assembled by the chef at Craft and the Amateur Gourmet, here is a video:
