The Meatloaf it is a dish usually based on minced meat, spices, aromas and binding ingredients (such as egg and breadcrumbs or flour), and served at the table as a second course or single dish, eaten both hot and cold, depending on the occasion. But before you fasten your apron and throw yourself into the preparation, to make the recipe for our Meatloaf even more inviting, you can try to combine it with a delicious side dish with Anglo-Saxon flavors such as Baked potatoes, very simple potatoes to prepare and that will surely please everyone; and why not, sprinkle them with the Sour cream to complete a truly rich and greedy serving dish to make all the guests lick their mustaches!

Preparation

1

Pour the minced meat, eggs, bread and grated Parmesan into a large bowl. Combine the finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper and add them to the rest of the ingredients.

2

Mix everything until you reach a smooth and compact consistency.

3

Take a sheet of parchment paper and spread it out on a work surface; pour the newly created meat mixture over it and shape it with your hands until you get the shape of a cylinder. The meatloaf should be about 20 cm x 8 cm.

4

Wrap it with parchment paper. Be careful not to close it too tightly as the eggs will cause it to swell during cooking.

5

Now also seal the edges giving it the shape of a candy.

6

Take a baking dish and place the meatloaf, wrapped in baking paper, with the closure facing up; the side flaps of the candy arrange them in the lower part of the meatloaf. Pour the glass of water into the pan and place it in the oven at 180 ° for about 20/25 minutes.

7

Once the cooking time has elapsed, remove the pan from the oven.

8

Open the foil and start cutting from the sides of the cooked meatloaf, for a better result, and arrange it in a serving dish with the side of potatoes with herbs.

SIDE POTATOES PREPARATION

1

Take the potatoes, clean them under running water and cut them into small cubes. Dress them with extra virgin olive oil, butter flakes; sprinkle them with previously chopped aromatic herbs, including fresh oregano, sage, thyme and rosemary and finally season with salt. Mix the flavors with the potatoes well and bake, until golden brown, at 200 ° for about 20/30 minutes.

Accessories

• A knife
• A large bowl
• Ladle
• Greaseproof paper
• A baking dish
• A glass

Tips and tricks

• Certainly the cold meatloaf will cut better, but if it is well done and well cooked there will be no problem even cutting it hot.
• Pay attention to the arrangement of the parchment paper in the pan: the closure facing up will prevent the juices of the meat from escaping during cooking. The meatloaf in this way will be perfectly moist.
• For those with a sweet tooth, it could be stuffed with smoked cheese and ham and lacquered with honey.
• In some variations the meatloaf is offered stuffed with vegetables, especially with spinach, and cheese; with only eggplant or chicken meat. Try them all!
• Did you know that there are several methods for cooking it? Savor it in the oven, sautéed or even boiled.
• In the American tradition, meatloaf is often brushed with tomato sauce in order to create a tasty and crunchy crust while cooking in the oven; alternatively, this browning can be made with an onion sauce, barbecue sauce or a mixture of ketchup and mustard.

storage

Meatloaf keeps well in the refrigerator for 3/4 days. Alternatively, it can be frozen, whole or sliced; thus it is preserved for about 3 months.

History

As early as the second half of the sixteenth century the meatballs, in various more and more elaborate variants, they begin to become the small protagonists of the recipe books, sometimes cited together with the first meatloafs. However, we will have to wait another century for the meatballs to become more similar to those we prepare today. In the mid-seventeenth century the practice of mincing meat to prepare meatballs was introduced, subsequently it was proposed to spread the obtained mass, stuff it and cut it again into slices to be rolled, and to boil and roast the veal, and then finely chop it. to create elongated and large balls of minced meat, similar to our meatloafs.

In the United States of America, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, cooking meatloaf was a simple and inexpensive way to feed the family, often using slaughterhouse leftovers. At the time, it was also very common to stretch the meat with wheat and breadcrumbs.

In any case, today as then, in the preparation of Meatloaf more or less the same ingredients are used, to flavor the meat and make it fragrant and tasty.

From meatballs to meatloaf

The word ‘meatloaf’ is the meatball augmentation: beyond the ingredients, which are roughly the same (ground, shredded or chopped), what changes is the final shape of the dish brought to the table. If the meatballs are many and small, the meatloaf is made up of a single large piece, with a more or less cylindrical shape, and served by slicing it at the moment.

To make it you can use many ingredients, such as different types of meat and vegetables, combined with spices, aromatic herbs and fragrant aromas, as well as delicious sauces and sauces. In some regions of Italy, the term meatloaf is also used to indicate a type of vegetable pie cooked in the oven, spread in a pan and without meat: this is the case of the traditional recipe of Liguria, the Genoese meatloafmade with potatoes and green beans flavored with an aromatic mince of marjoram