4 Levels of Meatloaf: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

Hi, I'm Emily and I'm a level one chef Hi, I'm Lorenzo and I'm a level two chef Hi, I'm Chris, I'm a chef instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education and I've been a chef for 30 years, this is the

meatloaf

recipe. from my mother-in-law, we make it for dinner at my house probably once every month or two, so I'm making a

meatloaf

with pork and shrimp and this is just a common combination in a celebration egg roll. That's the Filipino style called kekyum, so my meatloaf today is inspired by a beef wellington. You could say I'm making a meat pie Wellington.

This is level three, so we're going to take it to level three, so this recipe is originally Jewish, so there's no pork in it. just beef in it, okay guys, so my protein is pork, but I also have shrimp. I'm going to have to cut these babies up for my protein. I've got four different types, I've got beef, I've got pork shoulder, I've got some lamb and I've got some bacon, okay, so we're going to grind up all this meat, look at all that fat, we don't want your lean here, friends, not lean, no way, José, I just used my mother-in-law's instructions, I don't know.

I'm just going with what she says, okay I'm going to put this meat in the refrigerator real quick and then we'll move on to that bread mix, okay guys it's time to make my bread mix for the green pepper. chop it the same with the onion. I need half of this beautiful Spanish onion. You don't want to bite into a raw piece of onion or green pepper in your meatloaf. The first thing I'm going to do is put a healthy piece in it. amount of pepper I should say my mother-in-law's recipe has no amounts except a pound of ground beef and an egg now that we've sautéed the onions and green peppers I'm going to take it out of my bread the mixture comes three different ways I have the dough of puff pastry, I have the duck cell with mushrooms and I have the meat farts first, let's focus on the pastry missions you want, iced butter for something this small.

Having a touch is super important in many ways. We're all feeling this together, you know, so I have green onions, I'm actually going to cut them up and they'll be raw. I love crimini mushrooms, it's just a quick rough cut, once you get to this stage you can add the liquids. I'm going to add my water and then I'm going to add my vodka, so what this vodka does is help me not overwork the gluten and when you're done, you'll have the whole bottle left, so grab some friends. You're having a cake party the only time I opened a can of water chestnuts.

I always, for some reason, eat one and this will add a crunchy touch to the bite. This is garlic powder. I'm just going to add the amount of garlic. powder I want a lot of garlic powder a lot of garlic powder pretty good pinch of salt here okay so I'm just going to add a little bit of flour here you can see how the dough is coming together right now grab a piece of plastic I flattened mine out ahead of time, so I'm going to refrigerate this dough for about 30 minutes or so so a duck cell with mushrooms is very simple, it's finely chopped mushrooms, uh, with shallots to incorporate with a little bit of fresh herb, a little bit of wine and then I'm going to chill this so it's about six to eight crackers, so in oyster crackers it's a couple of handfuls, it's the metric conversion, now it's time for the meat or also known as farce, farce is another fancy word. to fill or fill out what I'm going to do.

What we do now is prepare the vegetables, I have the onion, I have the carrot, I have the celery, this will cook and then I will add it to the meat, if you want to chop the garlic quickly, take the fork, hold it down, take the garlic with your another hand and I'm going to chop it right there, on the tines of the fork, the layers of flavor continue to accumulate, accumulate and accumulate, well the meat. I'm going to add my dry mustard. I'm going to add my brown sugar. Now I'm going to break my eggs.

Eggs are so sticky. I am very fun at dinner parties. Eggs are sticky. It is not like this? Finally we are going to eat shrimp with pork, sautéed onions and green peppers. Now that we have this beautiful array of vegetables and then let's add our binding door, we'll add a little bit of salt, I put in my soy sauce and then tomato sauce. I'm one of those guys who likes tomato sauce on everything. I just want to say that tomato sauce was in this recipe anyway. I'm not going to go off script, I'm not going to do anything out of the ordinary, this is before me and my ketchup, so don't be weird, okay, that's my tribute to Emily from the beginning, now don't be afraid to get your hands dirty.

I'm going to snow the rest of the flower. I'm going to make two loaves and just to remind myself that I did a little karate chop so to me one loaf looks like a banana bread made from raw bee, I think we can. everyone agrees this is what a loaf looks like. I'm going to take my vegetables, chill them in the refrigerator, let's help it out a little bit and we'll put it in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes. See you in a second, so for my frosting. I'm actually making more sauce, it's kind of a sauce glaze, it's a sauce that becomes a glaze, but it's mostly a sauce, you know what I mean?

The first thing I do is cut it. my onion, so since it's a meatloaf what I'm going to make today, I'm going to use a brown grape, these are pork ribs, I'm going to season it with salt and pepper and I'm going to brown it in the instant pot to cook it. in between because and this is true, nothing bad ever happens in between, except in the TV show, where a lot of bad things happen, but they are usually resolved in the middle. I'll make a juniper berry and red wine sauce scented with some. a little spruce.

I'm going to caramelize the shallot in the pan. Hit it with a little bit of flour and butter just to create that thickness. Deglaze with the wine and broth. I'm going to re-oil my Instant Pot because I'm going to start making the rest of my vegetables, one of my favorite things in the world, red pepper flakes, we're going to put the onions in there, alright, we've got beautiful chunky vegetables. , so I'm going to add the flour and cooking it a little bit I'm also going to do the same with tomato paste and I'm going to deglaze with beef broth it almost looks like a very light tomato soup so let's go crazy and add more tomatoes this is tomato sauce sauce of canned tomato I'm adding my soy sauce, we can directly add our meat that we had seared before hello, what's underneath?

I have a lid and I did that and then the aromatics, my bay leaf opened up a little bit of the juniper berry. I'm going to put that in, I'm going to take a couple of sprigs of thyme, so actually, right in my backyard these pretty spruce trees grow and I'm going to let it thin out, that's it, so the first thing I'm going to do Bring me onions in okie dokie ketchup water and a healthy basil smoothie. I call it healthy because basil is good for you, not because of the quantity. Rose will tell you the science, she will probably say this is a strange sauce, so my sauce has been in the instapot for a good 30 minutes, so let's open it up and see what we have.

The reason I'm putting this out is because I'm going to shred the meat and of course I'm also going to leave it out. I'm going to use the intact vegetables as a garnish so let's make a slurry a slurry is a mixture of cornstarch and water one part cornstarch to two parts liquid very well slurry when heated reduce it I think my sauce is good for Come on, my glaze is Pretty typical, tomato sauce, sugar, garlic powder, so I'm going to spice this up now. Salt, a little ground black pepper. I'm going to add some fresh parsley.

Strain it through the strainer so that this sauce is ready, let's go. get that meatloaf, I've got my sauce, I've got my bread ready and it's time to put it together. This is a terrine mold. I was thrift shopping with my aunt, and she saw it on the shelf and said, "Hey, that's cooking." tool, right, I said hey, you know it could be and we bought it for 50 cents. He's here, quail eggs, so I'll peel them and then they'll sit inside the meatloaf. If you get a quail egg at the store, you can. boil it like any other egg, these can be cooked from a to z in about three minutes, so we basically have little boats for our meatloaf.

I'm going to move a little closer to my foil walls, first things first, let's get that dough now. you want it to be the size of your terrine and then some because you want it to overlap, just fold it in there and let it fall on its own. I'm pressing it against the sides feeling it, let's cut off a little bit of the excess, but you still want to keep that lip because that's going to be your glue for the lid. Let's do this. I'm going to try to use this, but I might end up using my hands, yeah, oh, and now I'm just going. pour my sauce underneath so I'm going to finish my charade I'm going to put the cold vegetables on the meat now don't be afraid to get your hands dirty so that's what they are we're going to take a layer of the meat we're going to place it inside the next duck cell with mushrooms the quail eggs are more for look and effect and then finally a final layer of meat and then again with the duck cell now let's open the lid so now I have the final piece I'm going to place this right on top and then I'm going to cut off the excess, so I'm going to take an egg and then I'm going to take your pastry brush, I'm going to make sure I get all the sides, okay?

Whats Next? Let's glaze this guy over. we have our glaze, we have a sweet and spicy because of the spicy sugar from the vinegar in the ketchup. You don't want the dough to crack, so I like to use a pastry tip and you can poke a small hole in the dough. I take a regular one. post-it, twist it and that keeps it from collapsing on itself, you can make these little indentations around the outside and then here you can just give it little swirls or little flowers, and my friends, they're ready for the oven, so bake my cake of meat, I'm going to put this whole cast iron skillet in the oven and bake it for an hour at 350 uncovered and then the meatloaf, come on, the meatloaves have been glazed, we're going to throw this in the oven at 350 for about 50 minutes. in an hour and it should be ready, I can't wait, let's do it, see you, we'll just put it in the oven. 375 hours and 10 minutes, it will be beautiful, crispy, flaky and juicy meatloaf just the way you like it. meatloaf place Gently place it in the center of the plate and then I'm going to give it a couple of slices, okay, okay, wow, first I need to sauce my plate, we're going to use the smallest one and put it a little bit off center. right, I told you to save the best for last, here it is, so I'm going to take out the vent and then I'm going to take it out of the ground.

I'm just going to put some of these beautiful onions in with tomato sauce. Upstairs sorry I splashed the table a little, but that's just the price for doing business with meatloaf, look at the patterns, you know, it's so beautiful, the art that was done back in the day with these old school tools, You know, he really stood his ground. the test of time I'm going through the shrimp, I can feel it, it's good, in fact, let's decorate it even more and top it off with some shredded pork and veggie panties, so now let's cut a couple of pieces on plate one . for me and one for you, I think it's in the dictionary vegetarian wedgie, okay, so let's put this sauce here and now I'm not even going to look, it's just beautiful wherever it lands, wherever it's there, pachao, I got off, I panic. and here's my meatloaf and here's my meatloaf and this is my meatloaf wellington well this my friends looks like meatloaf let's eat it and here we go.

I don't really like the ketchup horn, but the ketchup is delicious and it really brings something nice here that I'm not biased about it, it actually tastes really good, it's perfect if you're having a bad day and just want to hug, this is like a hug , it's like a hug in the mouth, so good, my friends, so good, you have no idea why. I have a collage of flavors happening here and it reminds me of several of my favorite dishes I've always had, excuse me while I go in once again, you can really taste that sauce.

I was talking about juniper and you can taste that spruce. the true depths of flavour, I mean it's amazing that the crust is sinking, you have to understand this, I'm telling you and I would do anything for a loaf. Meatloaf is a hearty classic American comfort

food

, let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs, Emily. Ground beef was used commercially, the 90 percent label means it has 10 percent fat, so it is considered lean ground beef. This percentage refers to the weight of the fat, not the percentage of calories from the fat, it also means that it won't shrink as much when cooked because there isn't as much fat to melt and melt, I can't imagine anyone has anything to say about this Lorenzo used shrimp and two types of pork, ground pork which tends to be leaner and lower in fat, and country-style bone-in pork ribs.

The style means that they are not actually ribs, but rather untrimmed meat that comes from the end of the pork loin near the shoulder. It's a little harder, so browning and cooking it in a pressure cooker was a good idea. Chris made a very sophisticated beef wellington pie. He grinds his own beef blend or farce, which is another way of saying seasoned ground beef blend. When you push themeat through a mincer, the mechanical energy from friction is dissipated as heat, which can melt the fat and make the meat soft and mushy. Chris avoided this. By chilling all of her grinding equipment in advance, Emily's cookies added volume to her meatloaf and also helped her bread retain moisture.

The starch in the crackers interacts and retains the water extracted from the meat during cooking as the proteins in the meat coagulate, squeeze out the water, and the cracker captures it. My in-laws firmly believe that you need a cracker. It was the best cookie for this and they should bring them back. Who made you need a cookie. You have fans. Their names are Farron and Gary. She used an egg to act as a binder. ground beef is more cohesive when raw once cooked the proteins coagulate and curl up for easier crumbling phospholipid emulsifiers and the proteins in the egg have excellent binding properties which helped hold Emily's meatloaf together Chris encased his meat pie Wellington inside a pie crust which he made his dough by cutting cold butter into a flour mixture, covering the butter with flour so that when he rolled it out it would have alternating layers of fat and flour forming a flaky crust , I wanted flakes, not chewy gluten development, so Chris also added a little vodka.

Clear and colorless liquid like water, but very different because it contains alcohol that does not develop gluten like water. He lets me have a couple of glasses. Lorenzo made a sauce based on the meat fat from quick sautéing his ribs. He added flour under pressure. In the cooking pot he gelatinized and increased the viscosity of his sauce, it was not as thick as he liked, so he added a cold slurry that is equal parts cornstarch and water. This viscosity increased so that the sauce was thick enough to stick and pour over Lorenzo's meatloaf soup. the soup is not ready we don't want soup we want sauce An evergreen tree have a strong herbal citrus aroma and a slightly medicinal aroma and flavor, primarily from a compound called pinene, which is also found in mangoes and pine needles.

He uses juniper berries sparingly, as they can quickly overpower the other flavors of the meatloaf. Emily's meatloaf took about an hour and a half to bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit, the internal temperature needs to reach 160 degrees fahrenheit for it to be cooked properly, but you can take it out of the oven at 155 because the temperature is initially raised by a process called carryover cooking of meatloaf. Avengers assemble it's good to use a thermometer because sometimes the inside of the meatloaf can look a little pink, this is because it hasn't been exposed to enough oxygen for the myoglobin to turn into the brown pigment known as myoglobin when mixed with oxygen.

Chris used a special terrine mold for his meat pie Wellington. The terrine has a high heat capacity and gets hotter than the air in the oven. The pie crust that touches the sides of the tree is heated by conduction, ensuring a crispy, flaky pie crust. I have done many things with her. I've made some desserts. semi-fredo some chocolates chris sealed his meatloaf with a perfectly measured piece of cake batter his beaten egg made sure the edges were sealed added shine and helped brown the cake batter chris baked his meatloaf for over an hour at 375 degrees Fahrenheit it transfers directly from molecule to molecule, it doesn't jump, so it took a long time to make sure the center of your meatloaf was fully cooked, no matter how you choose to make your meatloaf, we hope it takes some of these tips from our three. ingenious chefs