Tangy Meatloaf Burgers

I love meatloaf.

I don't know if I'm supposed to though.  While it is a quintessential American comfort food, it's also equated with mystery meat and gauche cuisine.  But I think when it's done right, it's moist, tasty, and filling.  What's not to love?

My son loves meatloaf as well, not surprising, as it's, well, meat.  I do need to be careful about how creative and sneaky I get when it comes to ingredients, of course.  That boy can spot "relatively healthy" from ten miles away.  So when I saw this recipe in Food Network Magazine, I was psyched.  It can be made with meatloaf mix or with ground turkey.  Since we're a pretty pork-free home, we went the turkey route.  And they suggested a bunch of toppings but I didn't bother.  Not that they didn't sound great, but why waste the effort when the Little Critic would just toss them to the wayside?  But meatloaf with a yummy sauce between bread?  I'm in.

Tangy Meatloaf Burgers

1 small onion (1/2 sliced into rings, 1/2 diced)
1 pound meatloaf mix (ground pork, beef and veal) or ground turkey
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (preferably panko)
1 large egg
1 tsp sweet or smoked paprika
1/3 cup ketchup
1/3 cup duck sauce (substitute 1/3 cup orange marmalade or peach preserves mixed with a splash of water if duck sauce is unavailable)
salt and pepper
4 rolls

1.  Preheat a grill to medium high.  Soak the onions rings in a bowl of cold water to keep them crisp.  Meanwhile, combine the meatloaf mix with the diced onion, parsley, breadcrumbs, egg, paprika, 1 tbsp each of ketchup and duck sauce, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper.  Gently form into four 1-inch-thick patties; make an indentation in the middle of each.

2.  Brush the patties with olive oil and grill until marked on the bottom, about 6 minutes.  Meanwhile, mix the remaining ketchup and duck sauce in a small bowl for brushing; set aside.  Turn the patties, brush with the ketchup mixture and continue grilling until cooked through, about 5 more minutes. 

3.  Spread buns with remaining ketchup mixture.  Drain onion rings.  Serve patties on buns with onions.

The Verdict:  Hello, my name is Chef Blunderbutt and I'm just going to toss random crap into ground meat, type it up as a recipe, and have a magazine print it, mmmkay?

It wasn't gross, but it was...busy.  You've got very herbal fresh parsley, the smoky taste of paprika (if you went the smoked paprika route), and because I wasn't buying a jar of duck sauce only to use a quarter of it, orange marmalade.  It's a bit of an arbitrary mix that just doesn't quite marry in the end. 

My poor son sat down at the table and announced, "I'm excited!" for dinner, thinking when I said burgers I meant those beef things between bread that don't taste like a helter-skelter sandwich.  But to be honest, his vanishing passion had less to do with taste and all about finding greens in his meat.  I was able to photograph the downward spiral of the meal:

And so goes dinner with this child.

Sorry so blurry, but here's Amir digging into his burger

 

He now discovers the offending green

Now the burger must be dissected to remove any and all parsley

The two things that I did learn from this recipe were the two tricks they included. The first is putting onion slices in cold water. I couldn't believe how nice and crisp they were in the burger. The other was making the indentation in the center of the burgers before cooking. You know how burgers swell up and look like meatballs instead of patties sometimes?  Making this well keeps them flat.

So I'm not sure if it was just my taste buds, but this meal didn't do it for me.  Let me know if you try it out and get a different result.  Maybe marmalade/paprika/parsley really is a great idea.









Turkey-Vegetable Loaf

Twenty million years ago or so, I bought a cookbook called The Low-Fat Epicure by Sallie Twentyman.  It has quite a few good recipes in it, but I'd never tried this one for Turkey-Vegetable Loaf.  I was kind of excited; I had visions of filling a meatloaf with lots of healthy additions and my family being none the wiser.  Well...

Turkey-Vegetable Loaf

1.25 lb ground turkey
1 small onion, grated and squeezed of excess juice
1 cup fresh spinach or grated zucchini, well packed and squeezed of excess juice
1 large tomato, chopped
1/4 cup minced celery
1 cloves garlic, pressed
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
4 slices fresh bread ground into crumbs (about 2 cups)
2 egg whites
1/2 cup ketchup

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Combine all ingredients except ketchup, and mix well.  Press into 9 1/2-by-5 1/2-inch loaf pan and spread ketchup over top.  Bake 1 hour, or until turkey loaf is no longer pink in middle. 

2.  Remove from oven, drain off juices, and let sit 5-10 minutes before serving.

The Verdict:  Surprise!  Or not so much--the toddler could spot green flakes from 10 miles away.

In addition to my son going on a vegetable safari (picking out anything he thought might possibly be a vegetable), I found it to be kind of bland.  And plain ketchup spread over the the top?  Just plain yuck.  You could at least mix in a little Worcestershire and brown sugar to create a somewhat tasty glaze.  Instead, it was gelatinous ketchup.

I was happy that the loaf stayed in a loaf shape.  My meatloaves are notorious for crumbling into heaps, so that was one win.  However, I think I'll take what I learned and apply it to a meatloaf that, um, tastes good.

Mini Skillet Meatloaves

So last night I had a choice to make. Get dinner on the table as quickly as possible with a sick, hungry and clinging toddler at my side, or set up for the nightly photo shoot. I chose the feeding the family. So I apologize for the lack of pictures for this recipe. If I make it again I'll edit this page to include one.

Since it was a week of vegetarian meals and fish stew, I thought that our resident carnivore 2-year-old deserved a hit of red meat. This Everyday with Rachael Ray recipe creates individual meatloaves topped with a sweet ketchup glaze.

Mini Skillet Meatloaves

1/3 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 large egg
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 small onion, finely minced
1 tsp chili power
2 cloves garlic, grated or finely minced
1 1/2 pounds meatloaf mix (ground beef, pork, and/or veal)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup ketchup
1 to 2 tbsp packed light brown sugar
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1. Mix the breadcrumbs, milk, parsley, egg, Worcestershire sauce, onion, chili powder and garlic in a large bowl. Add the meat and the salt and pepper, mix with hands until combined. From into 3-to 5-inch loaves.

2. Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add loaves and brown on each side for 3 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, mix ketchup, cider vinegar and brown sugar in a bowl. Brush a few tablespoons over each loaf when cooked, then add a 1/2 cup water to the pan. Cover and let cook for 15 minutes, or until loaves are cooked through.

4. Transfer meatloaves to a plate. Add the remaining sauce to the skillet, cooking for 3-5 minutes or until thickened. Pour over meatloaves and serve immediately.

The Verdict: These are called something. Wait...give me just a minute and I'll remember. Oh yeah: hamburgers!

Meh. My husband and I both liked them and Amir, in his typical meat-eating fashion, gobbled down one, ate part of mine and asked for more. But I didn't think there was anything particularly stunning about this recipe that makes me want to eat it again and again.

For me, I didn't enjoy the amount of parsley in it. I'm not a fan of parsley or cilantro, so every bite had that sharp and medicinal taste. I would use less if I make these again; if you like parsley, keep it the same.

While the meatloaves were OK, the side I served it with (Mashed White Beans) was very good. I'll post that separately.

Sausage Meatloaf, Part 2

I've not posted for a few days, not because I haven't been cooking like a lunatic, but because life is busy. The bulk of the activity revolves around our toddler. There is always nothing specific to report, it's more that he has two modes: on and off. Mainly on. Like tonight, I returned home from a meeting to find Amir still awake. "I went pee-pee, Mama!" he tells me. A weary looking Daddy says, "Yes, but tell her where, son." I'll spare you the gory details.


The good news is that in my flurry of cooking, I revisited the sausage meatloaf I'd posted a while back. Perhaps you remember it, perhaps you don't. But the verdict was that the taste was wonderful but the consistency was much too wet. I followed some of your suggestions and now have a meatloaf that will be a part of the regular rotation. I'll do a separate post for the side dish, polenta with corn and thyme. That was pretty ummy-nummy, so be sure to check that recipe out. Without further ado, here's the new meatloaf recipe.

Sausage Meatloaf

1 egg lightly beaten
1/3 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 slices whole grain bread, cubed
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp chopped, jarred garlic
1 lb hamburger
1 lb Italian chicken sausage (pork is fine, too, I'm sure)
1/2 medium onion, grated and squeezed
3 tbsp ketchup
2 tsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp packed brown sugar



1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine eggs, broth and the Worcestershire sauce. Let stand for 15 minutes. With fork, mash bread cubes into small pieces, then stir in parmesan cheese, mustard and garlic. Add meat and raw sausage from the casing and onion. Mix well with hands but do not overmix. Form into a rectangular loaf in a 13 x 9-inch glass baking dish.

2. In a small bowl, mix ketchup, vinegar, brown sugar and the remaining Worcestershire sauce. Evenly pour sauce over the top of the meat.

3. Bake, uncovered, for 1 1/4 hours. Drain grease from pan using a spoon or small ladle, and let stand for 10 minutes.

The Verdict: Now that's meatloaf.

Cutting down on the wet ingredients did help a nice loaf to form. It was still a bit crumbly, but in a good way that showed that it was moist. I also omitted the green pepper from the original recipe. From what I'm reading, the fewer "chunks" in a meatloaf, the easier time it has to bind. Besides, there's a lot of flavors going on between the sausage and the baked-on sauce.

I was worried that I had another gloppy mess on my hands when I saw the amount of grease around the loaf. However, it only stands to reason that this would be a fattier meatloaf with the addition of sausage. And I also learned in my meatloaf research that your hamburger itself should have a higher fat content. The leaner the meat, the more likely to crumble. Just siphon off the grease immediately, then let the loaf set.

This is a definite two thumbs up from Amir, the peeing toddler. He ate a slice just about the same size as mine, then said in his upwardly inflecting way, "More?" He said it a second time after eating another half piece, but generally a request for thirds is met with mainly playing with his food. Request denied, but thanks for the sentiment, kid.

Sausage Meatloaf

When I was a kid, I wasn't really into meatloaf. It seemed like just "something-else-to-do-with-hamburger." In recent years, meatloaf has been glorified and glamorized, but I think it's new publicist had little to do with my new judgement of the stuff. I like it now and I'm not sure why.

I don't think it's because I'm now an adult since my son loves meatloaf. Amir loves anything meat, pretty much. Maybe because it is something else to do with hamburger. A variable something else...a little of this, a little of that...and each meatloaf is a new adventure.

I've not entirely mastered a perfect meatloaf. I was hoping the following recipe would be It, but it got a solid B in presentation. Scored pretty high on the tasty meter, though.


Sausage Meatloaf


2 eggs lightly beaten
2/3 cup stock (beef or chicken)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 slices of whole grain bread, cubed
1/4 cup parmean cheese
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp chopped, jarred garlic
1 lb hamburger
1 lb Italian chicken sausage (I'm sure pork is fine)
1/2 medium green sweet pepper, chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
3 tbsp ketchup
2 tsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp packed brown sugar



1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine eggs, broth, and 1 tablespoon of the Worcestershire sauce. Let stand for 15 minutes. With fork, mash bread cubes into small pieces. Stir in parmesan cheese, mustard, garlic. Add meat and the raw sausage from the casing, pepper and onion. Mix well with hands but do not overmix. Lightly pat mixture into a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan.

2. In a small bowl mix ketchup, vinegar, brown sugar and the remaining Worcestershire. Evenly pour sauce on top of the meat.

3. Bake, uncovered, for 1 1/4 hours. Let stand for 10 minutes.


The Verdict: The sausage changes the flavor a lot in a very good way. And by mixing the meats, the sausage doesn't overpower the loaf. Both my husband and son really enjoyed it as well. So it's definitely something we'd all like to eat again. However, I am again flummoxed as to what I'm doing wrong in terms of my meatloaf falling apart, and in this recipe's instance, being too soggy.

I'm going to experiment with a few different things next time. If I end up with a visually perfect meatloaf, I'll fix the recipe and re-post. In the meantime, if you don't mind the sogginess, it's a really delicious recipe. (And it also makes great meatloaf sandwiches. I covered mine in barbecue sauce and it was like a firmer sloppy joe. Heavenly.)