I don’t really remember what made me look for a meatloaf recipe, because it was never one of my favorite meals. Must have been something on a TV show that inspired me to do one for the family’s Sunday meal.

The original recipe comes from Alton Brown at Food network. I made a couple of changes and everyone seems to really like it.

• 170 grams of garlic flavored croutons
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt
• 1 kilogram mix of ground beef, pork and veal (that’s 1kg total, not of each meat)
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 onion
• 1 largish carrot
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• Worcestershire sauce
• Tabasco sauce
• 1 tablespoon of honey

Pre-heat the oven to 325 F

In a food processor combine the croutons, black and cayenne pepper, chili powder and salt. Pulse until you get a fine texture, but not so much that it all turns to powder.

Dump that into a bowl, then add all your vegetables to the food processor (and the garlic) and get it finely chopped, but not puréed. Then add the vegetable mix, the meat and egg to the bowl with your crouton crumbs and mix well. I like to use the stand mixer for this as it mixes it nicely, but when I make a large batch it won’t fit, so I put on some latex gloves and mix it all by hand.

Get a backing sheet and line it with a Silpat or lightly greased aluminum foil. Dump the meat mixture onto the baking sheet and form it by hand into a loaf shape. I like this method instead of a loaf pan for a few reasons. It allows some of the fat to render off and out of the meat and, the cooked loaf is less dense than cooking it in a pan and lastly, with the meat in the pan, you can only coat the top with the glaze, the backing sheet method allows me to cover all but the bottom in glaze.

Cook time is about 45 minutes, but the best way to be sure it is cooked through, but still juicy and not over cooked, is to get a digital probe thermometer (they are very inexpensive now, I saw one a the grocery store for $14.99 yesterday) and set it for 155F, stick it in on an angle, far enough that the tip is right in the centre. The angle is really just so that you have enough meat around your probe that it won’t fall out, the tip being in the exact centre is the important part.

For the glaze, combine the ketchup, cumin and honey in a small bown. Add a dash or two each of the Worcestershire and hot sauce to your taste and mix well. Start basting about 10 minutes into the cooking. I’ve substituted maple sirop when out of honey and it tasted great too.

Enjoy.

PS, you can make it without the pork if you don’t eat it. Just do half and half beef and veal. I used lean ground beef, but you can go medium. I wouldn’t go the other way and use extra lean, I think it might make the meatloaf too dry.