Taste Like Chicken - What's Mike Cooking?: Comfort Food

For a long time now I have considered meatloaf to be comfort food. I don't really know why as I can only remember eating it at home when I was growing up once or twice and don't really remember loving it.

I also remember feeling really put out after I graduated from culinary school when I was asked to make it. Culinary chauvinism if you will.

So where did the comfort come from for me? It certainly wasn't from very far back in my past, maybe it was from me making it and knowing the the leftover piece was in the fridge. It might just be because when I had some around I knew that I had a versatile meal just waiting to be customized according to my whim.

I don't know.

When I think about meatloaf and the American palate, it occurs to me that this is a version of pâté from this side of the pond. Pâté in Europe was not always considered some sort of haute cuisine. It was a dish that was prepared for the family so that there was an easy meal in the cellar at the end of the day.

Early Pâté was stored in the terrine in which it was prepared and covered with a layer of rendered fat to help preserve it. It was literally the ground/chopped up scraps of an animal, seasoned and turned into something greater than the parts from which it was made.

For centuries, meat was not part of the peasant's diet. Meat when available at all was usually the scraps and less than appetizing by-product of the meals of the ruling class. When the peasant actually had some meat, it was a thing to be savored or saved. To spread it out over a little time, to make it last if you had the ability to store it, was the goal. For many centuries the meat that the peasants would receive would be the offal, the internal organs that were not used in the feast at the local manor or castle.

In my history of culinary arts class in school the chef told of a great feast that occurred some 500 years ago or so. The list of items served was impressive until you think about how long it would have taken to round up all that game considering that there was no refrigeration. Many a case of gastrointestinal distress would likely have been produced by such a meal.

The entrails and scraps would then be made into an enormous pie of sorts for the peasantry called oumble pie, this as I understand it is the source of the ten humble pie.

When the lord of the manor would distribute the organ meats, sometimes they were not prepared, should you receive a liver and some other scraps of meat and fat you would make something out of it using everything that you had been given. Enter pâté.

Today in the United States meatloaf has become a meal that crosses the socio-economic divisions that are present in our society. Nearly everyone I know likes it, and most make it from time to time.

Of course our near universal access to meat has removed from our recipes the less desirable organ meats so prevalent in pâté.

That is it for our short history lesson, let's make meatloaf.

Here is the recipe I made tonight:

2 # ground beef

2 large eggs

1/2 C yogurt (I used Greek style yogurt tonight)

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp dried Italian Seasoning (Oregano, Basil, Sage and Rosemary)

1 medium yellow onion minced

2 medium garlic cloves minced

2 T heavy cream

1/4 C milk (I needed this tonight because I used greek yogurt, with the regular yogurt from your local store the liquid content would be much higher thus no need for the milk)

Kosher salt

Black pepper

Here's the method:

Saute the diced onions and garlic until just soft, five minutes or so. set aside to cool.

Combine all ingredients except for the bread crumbs, milk and cream.

Mix them together with your hands. This is important. If you were to use a mixer such as a Kitchenaid, you can over work the meat and it may become tough. If you mix this just until combined, you can pull a tester (small amount to test your seasoning). Sauté this and give it a try.

Adjust seasonings if necessary. Add the now cooled onion and garlic mixture.

Once you have the seasoning that you want add the bread crumbs and cream.

Pull another taster.

If you find that the meatloaf is still a little dry, add a bit of milk. This will make the mixture more loose and therefore more tender when you are done. Adjust the seasoning again if necessary.

I have a meatloaf pan that I inherited from the person from whom we bought our first home. It is a bread pan like object that fits into another slightly larger bread pan and has holes in the bottom to allow the rendered liquids to drip away from the meatloaf. If you don't have one you can used a regular loaf pan or even a sheet pan that has low sides all around it for a more free-form presentation.