Meat Loaf

Last night Marty tested another recipe for Cook’s Illustrated.  This time is was for meat loaf. 

 

Every recipe has a goal.  This one was for a meatier tastier loaf.

This recipe had a huge amount of ingredients.  The meat loaf had 17 ingredients and the glaze had 8 ingredients.  That is just ingredient overload.

Here he is rendering the fat out of the pancetta and browning the onions.  Lots more stuff went into this.

                                                                

Marty is filling his “homemade” aluminum foil pan.  Now we have about a dozen loaf pans of various sizes, but the directions said make your own.  OK, did that.

 

This is the glaze simmering while the meat loaf cooks in the oven.

The meat loaf is out of the oven.  As you can see, the homemade pan leaks, mainly because you punch holes in it.  I am sure that is to let the grease run off.  But it makes a mess for the dishwashing queen, moi. 

                                                     

The meal loaf has been brushed with the concentrated glaze.  Now it goes back into the oven to cook under the broiler.

As the meat loaf cooks we have appetizers.  Marty had nasty oysters, I had luscious shrimp.  I made the cocktail sauce and picked the lemons from our tree.

All glazed and ready to slice.

A huge thick slice of meat loaf.  They met their goal, it is meatier, didn’t fall apart.  BUT it was heavy, dense, and not a lot of flavor. 

We did not think this was worth the 17 ingredients plus 8 for the glaze.  It really truly was dense.  You almost needed a knife to cut it. 

We have two recipes that are so much better.  One is Dolly Parton’s family recipe.  The other is from our nephew Chris N.  Chris’ recipe is by far the best ever.  And the funny thing is he has never tasted it.  He is vegetarian yet cooks meat for his family.