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description for more info. (jazzy music) All right, so just like meatballs, any great meatloaf starts with a panade, a mixture of milk and seasoned breadcrumbs that helps give the meatloaf
structure and keep it moist. Plus, I like to add one
teaspoon of garlic powder to my five ounces of breadcrumbs
and six ounces of milk. Once we got ourselves a
nice milky bready paste, it's time to add vegetables. And so we don't end up
with large crunchy chunks, I like to grate mine on the
large holes of the box grater. One medium carrot and
one medium rib of celery. Plus, I've got half a small onion here, which you could grate as well, but it's gonna have a
stronger onion flavor. Then I also like to add a
quarter cup of tomato paste, one and a half teaspoons
of Worcestershire sauce for that nice 1950s flavor, a quarter cup of finely chopped parsley, and two large eggs,
thoroughly beaten with a fork, or, of course, a tiny whisk. And then, it's super not traditional, but I like to add an eighth of a cup of finely chopped fresh basil. Does this make it more
like a giant meatball than a meatloaf? Kind of. Is that a problem for me? No. We're also seasoning with
a teaspoon of kosher salt, and one and a half teaspoons
of freshly ground black pepper. Then we're mixing until evenly combined, mixing this together
before adding the meat. Two and a quarter pounds of ground chuck. It helps evenly distribute all the spices and flavorings throughout. Then we're gonna throw on some gloves if you're a wimp like me and
need everything together. Once the beautifully flavored panade is evenly distributed throughout the meat, we're ready to form and bake, which we're gonna do in a
generously greased loaf pan, but not in the way that
you might be thinking. We're gonna take some
pages out of J. Kenji Lopez and Alton Brown's books, pack
it tightly into our loaf pan, and then invert onto a quarter sheet that I mistakenly lined
with parchment paper. You don't want to do that. You will see why momentarily. We're knockin' the meat
loaf out of the loaf pan and baking it free standing in
a 350-degree Fahrenheit oven. While that bakes for its
first 15 minutes stint, we're gonna make a sort of glaze. Four ounces of tomato paste,
one tablespoon of honey, one tablespoon tomato paste, a teaspoon of we-share sauce, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and a a third of a cup of brown sugar. We're also gonna add a few generous twists of freshly ground black pepper. This is going to form the
gooey caramelized layer on the outside of our meatloaf as we brush it down every 15 minutes during its 45 minutes
to one hour in the oven. Baking the meatloaf standing
on its own two feet like this allows it to brown in the oven,, giving us deeper, roastier flavors, thanks to the Maillard reaction. It also allows us to layer on our glaze the same way that we would on ribs, giving us lacquered stacks
of vinegary sweetness. We're just gonna brush it
down twice every 15 minutes for the first 30 minutes and
then let it finish baking for another 20 to 25 minutes, until it reaches an internal temperature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, that is not what the USDA recommends, but it's gonna give you
a much jucier meatloaf. Once it is finished with its
final bit of oven lovin', I'm gonna temp it, take it off the pan, and put it onto my
intended serving platter, and admire the grease
in the bottom of my pan. This is grease that your
meatloaf would normally be swimming in, making it greasy. Then it's time to remove
the parchment paper, which is when I discovered
my fatal mistake. It turns out the parchment
paper cannot handle all the moisture of this loaf, and it dissolves much like my confidence when shooting an episode about meatloaf. Once loaf is rested for 10 minutes, it's it's time to slice and serve. And for a super basic,
pretty quick meatloaf, this one is really, really tasty. The glaze is sweetened sticky and tangy, the meat is moist and flavorful, and well, that's really all there is to a meatloaf. But with this first
loaf, I've learned a lot, and there's definitely some things that I want to experiment with. Perhaps most importantly, the
not using a parchment paper, but also other stuff like
grinding our own meat and making our own meatloaf
mix, the classic formula for which calls for beef, pork, and veal. But I want to switch
things up a little bit, so instead of veal, I'm gonna
use a boneless leg of lamb, which I think should bring
some interesting gamey, grassy flavors to our meatloaf. First step is to remove any silver skin or connective tissue,
anything that your knife has kind of a hard time cutting through. If your knife has a hard
time cutting through it, so will your teeth. Once we've removed the chewy
stuff and the excess fat, we're cutting the meat
down into one inch cubes, which we're gonna spread out
evenly on parchment-lined baking sheets and plop in the freezer. Whoop! Plop in the freezer,
where our meat grinder parts have been hanging out
for the last half hour, or until very, very frozen. The colder everything is, the
easier it's going to grind, the less fat is going to smear, and less cleanup you'll have to do. We're grinding everything
on a medium plate, because we don't want too
many big chunks of meat in our meat loaf, and I'm
grinding all the meat separately, so I have control over how much of each goes into our mix. To hit our target of 36 ounces, I'm doing eight ounces of
lamb, 12 ounces of beef, and 12 ounces of pork,
which I think should give us a good balance of flavors. The vegetable prep is very much the same, but this time we're gonna
cook them down a little bit and add stock that's been gelatinized. If you have homemade stock
that sets up like jello in the fridge, you can skip this step. Otherwise, grab yourself a
half cup of store-bought stock and evenly sprinkle a packet
of unflavored gelatin over top, mixing occasionally to make
sure that it's all dissolved. Set that aside, and to both
deeply flavor our vegetables and make them softer, we're
gonna saute them a little bit. In a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil, heated over medium-high
heat, we're gonna saute our finely-chopped onion,
grated carrots, and celery for three to five minutes,
until just starting to get soft. Then we're gonna plop out
our gelatinized stock. Gross. Let that melt and let
everything simmer together until the stock has
cooked down by about 50%. Than we're gonna crush
in a couple of cloves of fresh garlic, let that cook for a bit, and then, before we can add
this mixture to the meat, we need to let it cool completely. So spreading it out on a sheet
pan is gonna make it cool a whole lot faster. While that cools, we can make our panade. But we're not gonna use
store-bought breadcrumbs, are we? No, sir. We're gonna make our own. Into a food processor goes three pieces of completely stale artisanal bread, and this totally optional, but a quarter ounce of
dried porcini mushrooms, which are gonna pack an umami punch. Then we're gonna process these
into some fine breadcrumbs, and process and process and process... You know what, I'm starting
to think this is a job for a high-powered blender. Never mind what I said before. We're placing this stuff
in a high-powered blender and processing until fine,
trying not to breathe in that stinky mushroom dust. Don't worry, this is gonna taste a lot better than it smells. Then I'm making a double
batch of meatloaf, so I need a big ol' bowl,
but I'm still gonna narrate the amounts for a single batch, so don't pay attention
that breaking four eggs into this bowl, you're gonna
break two eggs into a bowl which we're gonna tiny was together with four ounces of buttermilk. Then we're adding one
tablespoon of soy sauce, one teaspoon of wshshsheer sauce, and one teaspoon of fish sauce. Again, something that smells gnarly now, but it's gonna taste great later. Then we got our quarter
cup of tomato paste, eighth cup of fresh basil,
quarter cup of parsley, and our five ounces of homemade porcini mushroom breadcrumbs. Then we're gonna add all
of our sauteed and cooled vegetables with gelatinized
stock and mix that bad boy together for the panade
to end all panades. Then we are adding our
bespoke meatloaf mix, our teaspoon salt and teaspoon and a half of freshly ground black pepper, and then I'm really gonna
knead the hell out of this. My instinct is to keep this
mixture loose, like a burger, so it stays tender, but we
really need to work this mixture so it has good structure
and doesn't crack. After all, they say
don't overwork a burger, otherwise it'll end up like meatloaf. But we're actually making meatloaf here, so that's what we actually want. Soon as you're done with
whatever it is that I'm doing, it's pretty much the
same procedure as before except this time, I'm gonna
pack about a quarter of the meat firmly into the bottom
of the loaf pan to ensure that there are no gaps, piling
the rest of the meat on top and pressing firmly before
inverting onto, this time, a heavily greased piece of aluminum foil. I simply cannot stress how
important that this is. Our glaze is staying the
same, because it is perfect and flawless and requires no recompense, as is our baking technique. 15 minutes standing in a
350-degree Fahrenheit oven, glaze thoroughly and completely. 15 additional minutes in the oven, another layer of the
delicious glaze, I'm sorry, and then another 20 to
25 minutes in the oven, allowing to rest for 10
minutes before removing, slicing, and serving. Now, this meatloaf has
a significantly longer time requirement, and while
grinding your own meat certainly gives you more
control over what's going into the meatloaf, I think the real secret lies in all the flavors and umami boosters. But one beef I still have, so to speak, is the form factor. I propose that you make mini meatloaves, using the same method, but
with smaller loaf pans. These little guys cook a
full 10 minutes faster, and they're much more maneuverable and less unwieldy than
their big loafy brethren. And after a quick broil to set the glaze, they've got the same
beautifully caramelized exterior with a much moister
interior, and let's face it, smaller things are cuter. Case in point, tiny whisk. But no matter the size of the meatloaf, all these recipes are gonna
turn out absolutely delicious. Think of the second recipe as
a list of optional upgrades. You can add any one of
them to your existing favorite meatloaf recipe
to make them true members of the clean plate club. Thank you again to ButcherBox
for sponsoring this episode. ButcherBox is a game changer
for home cooked meals. Head to the link in the video description to choose your box type
and delivery frequency. They'll ship you your order for free, frozen for freshness
in an eco-friendly box. You'll spend less time
searching for high quality meat and more time eating. For a limited time, they're bringing back their popular steak sampler deal. New members will get two rib
eyes and four top sirloins free in their first box and $10 off, only for a limited time. Click the link in the video
description for more info.
4 tablespoons tomato paste and 1 tablespoon tomato paste in the glaze?
You definitely meant ketchup haha
How has it never occurred to me to mix all the other ingredients together before adding the meat?
Damn.
Well I massively screwed up a beef stew I'd made this past Sunday (that'd be a good Basics, heh), so maybe I'll give this meatloaf a shot this weekend.
I'm glad he sauteed the veggies the second time round. I was thinking he lost his mind a bit when he left the veggies raw.
My family always hand-formed the loaves when making meatloaf, which we affectionately refer to as "meat lump" since the shape is not totally uniform.
hey /u/OliverBabish, i noticed last week and this week’s basics were back to using the old intro. was that on purpose?
I made this tonight, except I used Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce to top mine.
I've always found it funny that the Danish equivalent of meatloaf is called "fake hare" (forloren hare). Also we wrap it in bacon!
Reminds me of Chef John's American Gyro's method https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRodQr0lVww&list=PLIk7HoRu8IbARKhygz77feP3-b8IlDwNE&index=6
Don't feel bad. Even Chef John tried to put parchment paper under a pile of ground meat baked in the oven
Not gonna lie, I'm disappointed in the lack of Meat Loaf puns.
That being said, I'm 100% making one of these this weekend!
Did the breadcrumb dust break Andrew?
“Wow that’s a lot of breadcrumb dust...Wow that’s a lot of breadcrumb dust...Wow that’s a lot of...”