Awhile back, Linda requested I post Gordon Ramsay's meatloaf recipe from the episode of the UK series of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares in which he helps Mama Cherri. To be honest, I scoured the interweb and had no luck finding it. Recently, a visitor named Marcus posted the recipe as a comment. Here it is in its entirety:

Gordon Ramsay's Meatloaf

50g butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 celery stalks, finely sliced
1 green pepper, finely chopped
4 spring onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp chilli sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
125ml evaporated milk
125ml tomato ketchup
750g minced beef
250g minced pork or sausage meat
2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
250g breadcrumbs
Freshly ground salt and pepper

1 Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the onion, celery, pepper, spring onions, garlic, parsley, chilli sauce, Worcestershire sauce and bay leaves. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring occasionally, for about 6 minutes.

2 Add the evaporated milk and ketchup and continue to cook for a further 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Discard the bay leaves.

3 Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4.

4 Place the beef and pork in a large bowl, add the eggs, breadcrumbs and vegetable mixture, and season. Place the mixture in an ungreased roasting dish and bake for 25 minutes. Raise the temperature to 200C/Gas 6 and bake
for a further 35-40 minutes.

5 Serve from the roasting dish.

So, dear 'loaflings, I have been silent for too long. Yes, it is an excuse you have all heard before and I don't know what to say. I seem to have fallen into a long winter of meatloaf hibernation. My juices aren't flowing and I haven't baked a loaf in quite some time.

However, a couple of recent events of note:

1) A month or so ago, at one of the many irregular meetings of VGC, Jor! (yes, the exclamation is warranted) served his mother's homestyle recipe. And what a tastey treat, well worth the trip to Stayner or just over to Jor!'s for a bite. Hopefully, I will post the recipe here soon.

2) I have recently become addicted to Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. If you haven't seen this show you don't know what you are missing. Watching Gordon Ramsay, one of England's better chefs, go into nightmarish professional kitchens and basically swear at everyone until they cook better is brilliant TV. "How does this relate to meatloaf?", you say. Well, check out episode 3 of season 2, Momma Cherri's Soul Food Shack for Gordon making, what I can only imagine, are the world's tastiest meatloaf tapas.

3) Stumbling through the interweb, you often come across the craziest of things. People with time and energy can accomplish anything. Like this woman, Sonya Thomas. She is ranked second in the world by The International Federation of Competitive Eating. In 2004, she ate 8.4 lbs of baked beans in 2 minutes and 47 seconds and she is only 105 lbs soaking wet. According to the IFOCE, she is the great American hope in toppling the dominance of the Japanese in the annals of competitive eating lore. One can only hope they add meatloaf to the list.

Anyway, that's it for me. Don't forget, please email me any meatloaf news, reviews or sitings to meatloafisfine@gmail.com

A little while ago my friend Pasta sent me a short note about his first experience making a 'loaf. Since he lives in Colorado, a state that has a strong history with the cattle industry and deep in the centre of the US of A, the home of meatloaf, I thought he may have gotten by purely on karma and osmosis. Boy, was I wrong!

Hey Pete:

I hope to have a story with a better outcome for you next time:

Sex has been said to be like pizza. Even when its bad, its still not that bad. I assure you this does not hold true for meatloaf.

I made a meatloaf tonight from a recipe that I found on the web. It was a Martha Stewart Recipe. It was a meatloaf gone wrong.

I would love to tell you that Martha's meatloaf recipe was a no frills dish that she and her fellow cons may have enjoyed some Thursday evening, a dish that was more for hiding a file than for delivering true nourishment. Alas, the recipe was from 2000, so I need to take at least some of the blame. I'm not sure what went wrong, but what did go wrong, went very wrong. It was not overcooked. It had a nice glaze. The consistency was not too bad. So - I can't really tell you what exactly was wrong with it, other than something was. And this was not an isolated opinion. A frozen pizza was quickly de-thawed for the rest of the family. I however was not as quick to abandon the meal. I figured - its cooked I may learn something from it. What I learned was that this meatloaf was ONLY a vehicle for mustard - and frankly not a very good one at that. I actually had to abandon the mustard for a stronger smokier barbecue sauce, and then just had to throw in the towel. Perhaps our kind host can help me with a simple recipe that minimizes the chance of me screwing it up.

Well, not knowing exactly what steps transpired really ties my hands, but I will give it a go.

According to Dame Melanie Barnard, whose cookbook I praised elsewhere on this 'blog, meatloaves consist or "four categories or ingredients: a main protein, a starch, a binder, and seasonings." You would be hard pressed to find a recipe that doesn't fit this template and I am pretty sure Martha's didn't stray too far from it. What I am about to share are the key tips to each of the four categories. Hopefully, the mistake will be obvious.

Main protein - The key is using a fairly lean fresh (not frozen) selection of meat. Extra lean and/or expensive cuts are generally pointless as they don't add anything except pretension and a little fat is needed for flavour and moistness.

Starch - The starch makes the 'loaf juicy, softer and more flavourful by absorbing the released juices from cooking protein. That is its purpose. The best choice is bread crumbs/chunks from a 1 to 2 day old loaf. Stale or old bread crumbs can actually make a loaf taste off, especially breadcrumbs kept in the freezer for a long time. Freezer burn has a very strong flavour.

Binder - The binder is what keeps the starch and protein together and not crumbling apart in the mixing process. Most starches are quite dry and proteins only release juices when cooked. The binder is best if it is a bland flavour carrying agent like eggs or dairy product (ie milk, yoghurt, or, god forbid, cream). It is there to keep the starch from sucked all the mosture out of the protein as well as keeping the whole package together in its loaf shape.

Seasonings - A lot of spices are best used fresh. If adding vegetables (ie carrots, onions, celery, etc) it is best to cook them lightly before adding them to the mixture. The cooking brings out more flavoured moisture. Dried spices more than a year old may have lost a lot of their flavour. One key thing is that seasonings should be used "with an assertive hand" as they truly make the loaf.

Also, if the recipe used was the one I linked to then be warned that chili sauce means something different now than it did even a few years ago. Chili sauce doesn't mean the Asian variety of textured hot sauce, but more like the Heinz Ketchup-version mixed with chili and peppers. It isn't inordently spicy.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you try again. Oh, and I miss you too Mark.