The meatloaf it is a dish that contains within it flavors and memories of family lunches, warmth of cooking, loving hands careful to enclose gourmand fillings in the coils of meat. Although it looks like a simple dish, perfect for retrieving leftovers and achieving a regal result, even meatloaf hides pitfalls in its preparation. Find out how it is cook the perfect meatloaf with the advice of Sale & Pepe!
Beef mince and more: the ingredients
To prepare the meatloaf you will need to minced meat (also mixed) such as veal, beef, chicken and and turkey or pork. Ask your butcher to chop it more than once.
Add this to the mix bread crumbs soaked in milk and well squeezed, a beaten egg, some chopped parsley and some tablespoons of Parmesan or grana padano. And, to achieve the correct consistency, add some breadcrumbs, little by little. To flavor the base you can naturally let your imagination run wild and add cheese cubes, capers, olives, mushrooms, chopped vegetables, aromatic herbs, spices and various aromas to taste.
Can the leftovers of cooked meat be used?
Sometimes it can happen to overdo the portions and, therefore, to cook much more meat than necessary. Not sure what to do with leftovers? Salt & Pepper helps you! With the advanced meat you can always prepare something good, from the meatballs to a gravy, passing for precisely for a sumptuous Meatloaf. In fact, turkey slices and boiled leftovers are perfect for this recycling dish. Chop the meat together with a sprig of parsley and a clove of garlic. Then add an egg, some grated cheese and breadcrumbs.
Create a firm mixture, similar to a large oblong meatball. After that sprinkle it with breadcrumbs and align it in a pan with a little oil. Cook the meatloaf, taking care to turn it from time to time.
How to prepare it for 4-6-8-12 people
Prepare the Meatloaf for four people it involves a proportion of 800 grams of meat compared to 200 grams of breadcrumbs. You will then need 30 grams of cheese. While for the smells and the spices you can always adjust yourself to the eye, for the main raw materials necessary to prepare the meatloaf, you will need to make proportions.
So to calculate the right ones doses for a meatloaf, keep in mind that to each diner there are 200 grams of meat and 50 grams of breadcrumbs. Holding this ratio firmly, for 6 people you will need 1 kg of meat and 300 grams of bread crumbs, for 8 people you will need to use 1.4 kg of meat and 400 grams of bread, for 12 people you will need 2 kg of meat and 600 grams of breadcrumbs.
What to prevent the meatloaf from opening
Despite being a very simple and rich preparation of variants, preparing this dish is not easy. Now we will explain to you what to do for do not open the meatloaf.
First of all, if you have decided to prepare a stuffed meatloaf, you must perfectly seal the meat so that the filling does not leak out. Start spreading the meat, giving the mixture a rectangular shape. Stuff and roll up the meatloaf. As you create the coils, push the meat in on both sides, compacting it with your hands. Press the closing flap well. Wrap it all in one sheet of parchment paper and let the meatloaf rest in the fridge for half an hour. Then bread it with flour and brown it in the pan first, which will ensure that the filling remains inside. After that you can either continue cooking in the pan or put everything in the oven.
Baked meat loaf
To prepare the baked meatloaf, you will have to follow the technique just explained. Once given the form, Bake the meatloaf at 200 ° C and leave it cook for 45 minutes. A spectacular variant, which cannot be done in the pan, is that of the Meatloaf In Crust. In this case you have to wrap the roll of minced meat in the puff pastry or in the brisée dough just before baking it.
If you have prepared a stuffed meatloaf, cooking in the oven must be carried out at 180 ° C for 45 minutes, but only after a short time pan fried to avoid the leakage of the filling even in this case.
Meatloaf in a pan with meat
Cooking the meatloaf in a pan is a choice aimed at having one moist meat, soft and juicy. To cook it without the passage in the oven, help yourself with some vegetable broth, which you will need to wet the mixture during cooking.
While you are cooking the meatloaf in the pan, you can also add gods pepperoni, of basil and other vegetables that will give a fresh taste to this dish already of his greedy. After preparing the mixture and heating a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil and a knob of butter in a pan, arrange the meat and let it evaporate with white wine.
Meatloaf with meat sauce
Among the many variants available in the Italian culinary tradition, there is also that of the meatloaf with meat sauce. Preparing it is very simple and the result will amaze your guests.
After following the basic procedure to prepare the classic meatloaf or a recovery meatloaf, created by exploiting, for example, advanced boiled meat, prepares for vegetable broth with fresh vegetables or to the limit of the nut.
Prepare the meat mixture with all the necessary ingredients: eggs, parsley, bread crumbs softened in milk, grated cheese, salt, black pepper and nutmeg. If you want a richer and more appetizing result, add to the mixture even the crumbled pieces of sausage. Give the meat and ingredients mix the classic elongated shape of the meatloaf and place it on a cutting board. The meatloaf must be cooked with a sauce in a very large pan.
Fry crushed poached garlic, add the meatloaf and leave it brown for a few minutes. Remove the garlic and add a few tablespoons of tomato sauce. Shrink the sauce for a few minutes and add salt. At this point dilute of the tomato concentrate in the vegetable broth and add it to the meatloaf in cooking, thus feeding the cooking juices which, as they are, will narrow.
Cook in the pan for 45 minutes and only at the end add some fresh basil leaves. Serve the stewed meatloaf with a tasty side dish, for example gods mushrooms, which will enhance the already delicious flavor of the meat.
Stuffed meat loaf
It is possible to prepare infinite variations of meatloaf with the addition of stuffed meat based inside cheeses, vegetables, cured meat is sliced, hard-boiled eggs but also real omelettes. The combinations are really many. The only care is to never forget the passage in the pan to seal the meat roll and not let the filling "escape".
Light meat meatloaf
You can prepare a light meatloaf meatloaf using only 3 ingredients. For this quick and easy recipe spread thin slices of grilled courgette in a non-stick plum cake pan or in a previously oiled cassette mold by making them overflow. Mix 500 grams of chicken meat ground with 500 grams of ricotta cheese. Plasma this mixture with your hands in the center of the vegetable base, filling the shape, and then close the zucchini on the meat. In a pan pour a glass of water and place the mold with the meatloaf in the center. Bake for 200 ° C for about 20 minutes.
Another way to prepare a light version of this great classic is the vegetable meatloaf and in general all the vegetarian or vegan recipes, without meat. Try for example the baked eggplant meatloaf.
