Beef Stew Meat Loaf
Filed Under: recipe on April 15, 2011
The other night, I made what I call “Beef Stew Meatloaf.” It’s a unique recipe for meatloaf that involves a lot of vegetables and other ingredients to give the meatloaf a decidedly beef stew-like flavor. Here’s the basic recipe:
The ingredients are basically in thirds. You’ll be adding two kinds of meat and a lot of veggies. This recipe makes enough to serve a modest banquet.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb (or so) of lean ground beef
- 1 lb (or so) of lean ground pork sausage
- 1 lb (or so) of chopped or minced veggies (your choice)
- 3 eggs (large)
- 2 cups dried bread crumbs, croutons, milled oats, or anything similar that you have on hand – whatever it is, it should soak up a good bit of moisture when it’s in this mix
- BBQ sauce (about 1/2 a cup)
- salt (to taste)
- black pepper (to taste)
- 1 bay leaf (dried and ground or fresh and finely minced)
- cilantro (a knuckle’s worth dried and crumbled or fresh minced)
- turmeric (two pinch’s worth, however you can get it)
- 1 good-sized tomato or two smaller ones, minced
You can add other spices as you wish. If it tastes good in your beef stew, it’ll work here too. The vegetables you use can be any you’d like. I used a few carrots, some celery, a medium-sized sweet onion, several radishes, about a quarter head of cabbage, and a full clove of garlic.
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
You can mince, grate, or chop the vegetables. I grated them for this, since it was the easiest way to process this many veggies at once.
In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients well, except for the BBQ sauce. The best way is to just put them all in there and then mix by hand, kneading it as if you were making bread. When everything is thoroughly mixed, transfer it to a deep, well-greased casserole dish.
The casserole in the photo is a porcelain dish of about 12 inches diameter and about 5 inches deep. As you can see, it filled it to the brim. I didn’t grease it since the porcelain is a great non-stick baking surface on its own.
Place into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes at 400ºF. Then open the oven and spread the BBQ sauce over the top of the meatloaf like a frosting. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes. Adjust baking times for smaller or thinner dishes, of course.
Let stand to cool for about five minutes and then slice and serve. It has the consistency of meatloaf, but has a unique beef stew flavor. If you want to make it even more unusual, use spiced breakfast sausage rather than standard pork sausage.
Serves the neighborhood.
