Niagara Visitor wrote:What's cooking today???? I made a meatloaf. Made one in a regular loaf pan to give to my son and DIL, and a small one for myself. I may have asked about this here before, but here I go again.............. the flavour of my meatloafs (Meatloaves???) is always good. My children love it, tell me "Mom, it's great, what are you worried about???" I don't like the consistency of it. It doesn't slice nicely for a sandwich, I find that it is not what I would call "smooth".
Today I used half beef, half pork, two eggs, one package of onion soup mix. For flavour I added some Worchesteshire sauce, some horseradish, salt, pepper. I think it was dry. good flavour, but dry. Any hints/help????
Your sounds really good, Lore! I like it when it's not smooth like pate when it's cold.
Since you use the onion soup mix and you think it's too dry, you probably could add some more moisture to it; some recipes use milk, buttermilk or even yogurt. Why don't you try adding a half a cup of one of those liquids to it next time and you might find it a bit more moist. I normally add a couple of teaspoons of Dijon mustard, too, and a chopped onion that I've sautéed with garlic and let cool; but since you use the onion soup mix, you probably should skip the fresh onion/garlic and just use some more moisture in there to counteract the dry soup mix, you know? I'd stick with 1/2 cup or 3/4 cup of the liquid. I hate when ground meat mixed for anything is overmixed as people sometimes do with their hands if they're pinching everything together to mix it. I find overmixing or over-handling the ground meat makes it tough and also tends to give me heartburn. I mix my meatloaf ingredients with a wooden spoon and normally once the "right" amount of liquid is added, the mixture no longer clings to the side of the bowl I'm mixing it in.
I mix up the sauce (combo of about 2 cups of chili sauce or ketchup, 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup cider vinegar) and heat it up in a small saucepan over low heat. I put about a quarter of the sauce on top of the meatloaf and then cover the whole thing with bacon strips on an angle. You could make half the amount of sauce; I make a lot so his nibs has a lot left to serve over his meatloaf slices; he also will use it cold on sandwiches the next day too if there's any left.
One more thing that might help is to let it rest about 10 or 12 minutes after you take it out of the hot oven. Worth a try anyway...
I tend to agree with Beth that meatloaf is one of those family specific type meals. My father loved it and made it all the time so I got sick of it as a kid; though I always tend to enjoy it today (especially the next day on a sandwich), it's never something I think of making and feel good about doing it. I just make it 'cause Brian really likes it and we almost always have ground beef in 1 lb., 1-1/2 and 2 lb. packages that we make up and freeze after buying a larger package to save some money per pound.
My father used to use oatmeal in his all the time and I found a recipe years ago that uses broken up saltines in it; Brian like that one a lot 'cause of the sauce and the crispy bacon on top. So we've kind of stuck with that one since he's the meatloaf fan. When I'm out of saltines, I used either these chunky seasoned French bread crumbs made and sold locally or oatmeal. The sauce sounds a lot like Beth described that her grandmother made.
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