Serious Eats: Recipes
Cathy's Big Fat Meatloaf
Cathy Loup tells about being on the Atkins Diet and experiencing a craving for meatloaf, during which she devised a version that didn't rely on bread as a binder. It soon became a challenge to see how much fat and cholesterol she could pack into one pan. She says that the resulting cheese, yolks and sour cream elements hold the loaf together very well and that it slices beautifully and is delicious hot or cold.
She cooks the meatloaf on a Big Green Egg with hickory and mulberry wood for smoke flavor, but it's good made in an oven too.
Cathy's Big Fat Meatloaf
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup diced yellow onion
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 sweet red pepper, diced
2 tbsp olive oil (or bacon grease)
1 lb ground chuck
1 lb ground pork (substitute ground turkey if desired)
10 ounces Andouille sausage (or other spicy cooked sausage), coarsely ground in a food processor
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 cup shredded mild cheese (e.g., Colby or Monterey Jack)
3 large egg yolks
3 tbsp sour cream
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
1/2 tsp ground chipotle
1 tsp ground cumin
Kosher salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste
Glaze
3 tbsp ketchup mixed with 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Procedure
1. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until lightly browned; add red pepper and saute until soft. Season with salt & pepper. Cool.
2. Mix cooked vegetables with other ingredients. Pack into a 9x5x3" loaf pan lined with foil or plastic wrap. Chill for several hours.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.* Turn loaf out onto a rack set in a shallow baking pan. Brush the top and sides of the loaf with the glaze. Bake for about an hour and a half, until the loaf's center temperature is 150 degrees.
4. Let rest for 20 minutes before slicing.
* If you have a smoker, heat it to a grill temperature of about 250 degrees, toss a few chunks of smoking wood on the coals (I like red oak or sugar maple), and set the pan on the grill. Gradually increase the grill temperature to 350 over the next 20 minutes or so. Cruising up from the lower temperature will help the loaf absorb more smoke flavor.