Meatloaf & Mash

Ok I think from all the previous entries aby reader must have come to the justified conclusion that I can't for the life of me follow a recipe to the letter. Te meatloaf followed the same tangent.

I had 500g premium lean beef mince from Mondo's. I also had some tofu left, 1/2 block. Those who have had the Chinese traditional 狮子头 (shi zi tou, Lion's Head) would know where I'm going with this. 狮子头 is a meatball dish - giant pork meatballs with tofu mixed in to make them fluffy, they're also whipped with egg & soup stock and well traditionally the steamed and then the sauce is Devine, must try this is Varoma one day. Ok, enough with the tangent. So as you can tell I added tofu to the meatloaf. What I didn't realize was the recipe had no salt content other than wrapping with prosciutto, glitch - I didn't have prosciutto or ham slices. I only had 3 slices of bacon left & they were lean bacon. Oh well they went on the base of the meatloaf foil wrap/package.

I roasted it in the oven at 180C fan forced, opened foil packaging after 40 miners for another 15 mins or so. The meatloaf was slightly dryer than expected. The tofu actually steals the oils away from the meat and therefore absorbs the juices. I also pulverized the mince too much - the breakdown of the protein structure allowed too much to escape. Flavor was still fine, I think it could've done with either a 1 tspn of the TM vegetable paste or more tomatoes. Maybe adding a more watery vegetable - mushroom or zucchini would have worked better.

I am however sure if you were to use fattier beef or pork mince this would taste more moist. Also the original recipe did call for Varoma, maybe next time I'll follow that instruction.

The mash turned out perfectly! I did it accordingly to 1/2 the recipe ingredient content which worked fine, I didn't -20% the cooking time - which could explain why there were potato mash starting to get stuck to the bottom of the TM bowl. I'm definitely trying this mash again in full!

I also placed zucchinis and mushrooms with the meatloaf to roast, the off flow juices helped make these extra tasty!

My small taste test bowl - with mash, zucchini, mushroom and a slice of meatloaf.

Rating: 3.5 stars (like I said, slightly too dry and tofu absorbed more of the herb flavours than expected).