Meatloaf ミートローフ

While my wife was looking through the trusty old cookbook “Joy of Cooking”, she found a yellow stick’m in her handwriting from many years ago posted on one of the pages. It was a recipe for meatloaf which was a regular in her culinary repertoire long ago . It appears that this recipe is different from any other meatloaf recipe in the book. In general, we are not big fans of meatloaf or hamburger, but since this was my wife’s special recipe, we decided to try it for old times sake. It calls for ground beef, so we got one pound of 20% fat (we thought a bit fatty meat may be better for meatloaf) ground beef from Whole Foods. This was a pretty good meatloaf (#1). It was moist and flavorful. When it just came out of the oven it did not keep it’s shape very well when sliced but after refrigeration it held together better.

I ask my wife to expand on her special recipe. I helped her by chopping up onions and shiitake mushrooms (since we had a few left). I sautéd  them in olive oil (left upper in picture #2).

Ingredients: (Shown in picture #2)
1 lb ground beef
1/½ cups onion, chopped (optional several stems and caps of fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped)
1 cup bread crumbs
2/3 cup ketchup,
1 tbs Dijon mustard
2/3 cup parsley
3 eggs
1 tsp ground thyme
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper or cayenne
1 tbs horseradish (we used yuzukosho hot sauce)
3 tbs chopped garlic
1 cup Parmesan cheese
ketchup on top

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. (It doesn’t get any easier than that). Put in a loaf pan and top with catsup (#3). Cook in a 350 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes (until done).

This meatloaf was a colorful combination of flavors and textures.  The catsup topping caramelized and added a nice sweet/tart touch. This was a very nostalgic dish for my wife. We may have to add it back into the repertoire.