Saturday, March 03, 2012

Festive meatloaf

I had guests this weekend, but I did not feel like creating something labour intensive. Yet, I wanted "visual appeal". Plus I only had ground turkey at home and it needed to be used up. So I looked around for inspiration on the net, in Images, for a nice meatloaf. The resulting creation looked like this:




Ingredients:
3 lbs ground meat (any kind)
1 1/2 cup soft breadcrumbs
3 eggs
3 garlic cloves
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (or Maggi)
a 4 oz chunk sharp Cheddar, grated
1 cup or more of chopped parsley or spinach
tomato paste
salt pepper, paprika, cinnamon
bacon slices (optional)

Mix together the first five ingredients, add salt and pepper to taste, then take off one third of the mix. To this smaller amount add a pinch of cinnamon, some mild paprika and tomato paste until you like the resulting colour.

Now spread the larger amount of meat onto a square of plastic wrap, carefully arranging so the width would fit the loaf pan. Now spread the steamed and ground spinach (or chopped parsley) on top of the meat, then sprinkle the cheese over it. Finally carefully spread the red meat on top, not quite all the way to the edge on the long side so you can roll it up nicely.

Transfer the roll into the pan and, if you have bacon, cover the top of the loaf with the slices. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake it at 350F for half an hour. Then remove the foil, return the loaf to the oven and bake until the bacon on the top is nice and crisp.

Serve it with celery-lemon rice. I also offered steamed snow peas, pickles and a tomato salad to go with it.

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