Dan Abel wrote:
> In article >,
> "Julie Bove" wrote:
>
>
>
>>What is the technique? If there's one thing I hate to mix it is meatloaf.
>>I always start with a spoon which never works. I always end up using my
>>hands which I hate to do. I do have some gloves now.
>
>


The technique i got from Leah Wolf's "Jewish Cookery" and it results in
a very fine grained meat loaf that bakes up to resemble a pate. Great
for slicing thin for cold meat loaf sandwiches (which is imo a primary
reason for making meat loaf in the first place

Leah Wolfs instructions were to "grate" an onion and a carrot and other
veggies, with a note about preserving the onion juices to include in the
meat mix.

I did it that way the first time i made her recipe, and after what i
thought was an initial and grievous error, turned out to be integral, my
mind immediately went from "grate" to Food Processor.

Now a days i puree a whole peeled onion, a couple of carrots, bell
peppers, few stalks of celery & etc., in the food processor and add
these pureed veggies to the ground meats ( i like to use a combo of beef
and pork) and then for a 2 pound meat loaf i add 1 cup of stock and/or
wine, but one cup of liquid, water, milk etc. to the meat mix, i don't
use any eggs, or filler but i do like a half cup of oat or what bran
even more for the flavour it adds than as filler.

The first time i added the whole cup of liquid to the meat and mixed it
up it became very soupy, rather liquid, and i thought "this cant be
right" but there was nothing left to do but but put it in the oven, and
it came out with the fine grained, pate like texture And preferring
this fine grained, pate like meat loaf that is how i make it nowadays.

The large amount of liquid allows for a greater homogenization of the
pureed veggies & ground meats.

Season to taste.

If anyone's really interested i have Leah Wolfs recipe on file.

> It's just like one of our regular eating forks but bigger, except I like
> eating forks with four tines and three tines works better for mixing
> meat loaf:
>
> <http://www.amazon.com/Continental-St...Fork/dp/B002GJ
> 8W1M/ref=sr_1_17?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1317580534&sr=1-17>
>

Using the above technique one can mix the meat & liquid with a mixing
spoon. I prefer to use my hands, i don't bother with gloves, and with
my hands i can get in there and make sure its really well homogenized.

I like to mix it up in a big steel mixing bowl i have and then just pop
it in the oven in the mixing bowl. Leah's recipe calls for greasing the
baking container but i don't and have never had a problem at about 35OF
for about an hour.
--
JL