Having had a delightful Sunday filled with cleaning and tidying and now that the house looks all lovely once again, it's time to cook supper.
At the supermarket yesterday I'd been seized with the urge to cook meatloaf so, as no recipe sprang to mind, I'd bought a half kilo each of good beef and pork mince as they had to be prime contenders for inclusion.
American's make meatloaf, don't they? I've a lovely USA cookbook that I found in Naples, Florida. The place where the greybirds go to winter away from the northern American winter. Basking in brilliant sunshine, balmy warmth and occasional torrential rainstorms, Naples is slow and stately. Nothing rushes there. I seem to recall we did precisely nothing other than to return repeatedly to a rather good bookshop where we could satisfy our reading itch. We went back with more books than clothes if I recall. The, like, total bonus was the opportunity to sit in the cafe and listen to the locals. Our favourite were the collection of blond, barbie like teenage females who seemed to communicate entirely tonally. "He was like all ewwww, and I was like woaaaah! Then they all appeared and we were all waaayyyy!!" Fascinating.
Turning to my bumper USA cookbook shed some light on the meatloaf topic. Don't over mix. Put more seasoning in than you think is reasonable, it will need it. Add a good dose of wet stuff.
Seems straightforward enough.
Sauted 2 garlic cloves and 2 small onions, both finely chopped in a tablespoon of olive oil. Chop a few mushrooms, add to onions and cook.
Put 500g of both beef and pork mince into a mixing bowl. Add cooked onion mixture. I also put in about half a cup of fresh breadcrumbs. Season well. I used:
- ground cinnamon - about a teaspoon
- ground cumin - teaspoon
- dried chilli flakes - teaspoon
- salt & freshly ground pepper
For the wet ingredients I added about 3 tbspns tomato puree and 1egg. Gave it all a light stir to distribute it well together and put it into a 1kg bread tin, smoothing the top down neatly.
I was feeling in a bit of a nutty mood, so I topped the loaf with a layer of cashew nuts before putting it in a pre heated oven at 170c for an hour.
Served a nice thick slice of it with steamed brown rice finished by stirring in some sweetcorn kernels and butter along with salad. I knocked up some bang-bang sauce (tbspn greek yoghurt, tbspn mayonnaise, good grating of parmesan - mixed well together) and added a dollop on the side. Was nice.
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