Talking Food with Cory Bahr: Meatloaf

Hey, I'm Chef Corey Bahr and today we're talking meatloaf. Let's jump right in. meatloaf is like America's favorite pate. People don't even know that but that's the basis of it. It's a combination of meat, aromatics, and vegetables that are cooked slowly, that create everybody's favorite American meal. For me what makes us different is that we use really great beef but we also cut it with about one-third pork. So in this bowl, I have two pounds of ground beef, one pound of freshly ground pork, and we're going to add a couple of just really easy ingredients. I like buttermilk. Buttermilk adds a nice acidity to it. Some dried thyme, kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, fresh garlic. Don't be shy with the garlic. And then we'd like to add some celery, onion, bell pepper. That really makes it a Louisiana, right there... Using that holy trinity, some untoasted Panko breadcrumbs that binds it. If you're on a gluten-free diet, you can actually use some quick oats in here. So that makes it gluten-free for you. A couple of farm eggs, a couple of things a little Crystal hot sauce. A little Worchestire, just gonna take our spoon. One thing you gotta watch when you're making meatloaf is over mixing the meatloaf. It will make it tough. You just want to fold it together really, you see me folding. That looks really nice. Smells great, nice and easy. We have a cast-iron mold here that we like to use. It's been lightly oiled at home, you can use a loaf pan or something like that nonstick that make it easy too. We're just gonna put our lightly folded together. meatloaf mix down in our pan. We're gonna make sure we get out any air pockets that could be in there. We're not really packing it down in there. We're just lightly pressing it in. Just take the back of your spoon and go around the edge. Now one of the things we do in our kitchen and that you could benefit at home is slow cooking this. 350-degree oven. We're going to pour the water in and what that'll do is create a water bath that will allow this to cook very slowly. Pop it in. That size is going to take us about 40 minutes to cook all the way through. We're going to make a really quick ketchup glaze for our meatloaf. We add sugar and then red wine vinegar. It just reinforces the acidity of the ketchup. So the sugar helps and caramelized on top of the meatloaf while it's cooking. And the red wine vinegar helps brighten it up with some acidity. Let's go glaze our meatloaf.

Spread it on there nice and even.

Got about another 25 minutes.

That's perfect, nice crust that's been caramelized. I love those little dark spots. They have a ton of flavor. What I like to do is let the meatloaf rest for about 30 minutes. You don't want to serve it hot right out of the oven because all those juices had to redistribute.

There you have it. Classic American meatloaf glazed with ketchup, sugar and a touch of red wine vinegar. Hey, if you want to cook this recipe for yourself, go to KNOE.com and click on Talking Food.