1 kg lean ground beef*
1 large egg
1 small onion, grated
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 tbs Dijon mustard or Worcester sauce
3 tbs ketchup
3 tbs breadcrumbs
1 tbs flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
2 ts salt
¼ ts freshly ground black pepper
2 strips raw bacon**
butter & oil
Preheat oven to 190°C.
Coat a standard loaf pan*** with oil.
In a large bowl, combine the ground meat, egg, onion, garlic, mustard, ketchup, bread crumbs, parsley, salt and black pepper. Mix well with a large spoon or clean your hands.
Pack the meat mixture into the prepared loaf pan, rounding the top to form a nicely shaped loaf. If using the bacon, lay the strips along the top of the loaf**.
Bake for 1 h (or 45 m when using a broad tin).
Remove from the oven. Cool for 15 m in the pan/tin before releasing and slicing.
Serve with with a nice drop of mushroom gravy (or a mushroom-onion gravy), with mashed potatoes and vegetables like broccoli.
In summer, serve it cold with pickles or a good green salad. Or put a thick slice on toasted bread with some ketchup.
*Or a combination of ground beef, veal and/or pork.
**Optional.
***Or cake tin.
Ground meat was met with suspicion (and rightly so, giving the hygiene of the time) until the 1880's when meat loaf recipes turned up in the US, some 20 years after the first mechanical meat grinders surfaced. The preparation was called cannelon (of beef), still shaped in a roll, like sausages but without skin. Ground meat was a cheap answer to feed the industrial masses, and would not have been of the highest quality beef. Veal was a main source, and the mixing with pork was/is still common.
Small balls of minced meat were already popular, but quite expensive, in Europe. Meat, minced by hand, was documented in the States as a leftover cooked in sauce since the beginning of the 19th century.
