Dish of the month (February 2022): Meatloaf (including plant based)

Mountain Cat said:
Carrots are only good if well cooked into nothing, or into a mirepoix. I use shredded carrots for that. (I could grate them myself but I keep reminding myself about how much I dislike them and so never getting around to expending the effort. Spend a little more and buy them pre-shredded. Oh, and I especially don't like them RAW! (But I've enjoyed a good carrot cake in the past, mainly because they don't tend to be made as sweet as most cakes are, and the frosting is usually edible, too. )

I don't think sweet potatoes and carrots taste at all alike. Same color is not the same thing.

Weirdly, I like parsnips. But a little goes a long way.
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Agreed about the cooked carrots being cooked into nothing. They must be diced small and cooked forever in soup base. For some weird reason, I didn't mind the purple carrots cooked as much as I disliked the orange ones. They were all pretty good when cooked with a mixture of root vegetables and chicken with all of that chicken juice dripping into them.

I think I must be highly sensitive to the cooked beta carotene, because yams, sweet potatoes, sweet squashes (yellow, green whatever), and cooked carrots all have this similar weird flavor I don't like. I do like carrots raw in my salads with dressing and some sort of cheese like shredded parm, feta, or goat cheese. Nice crunch in the salad, can't really taste the carrots much, I don't use a lot.

I love parsnips. I just found that out last week! I don't think they taste like carrots at all.
 
Peloquin said:
This might sound daft but what exactly is meatloaf?
I dunno if it's because I'm from the uk or if it's because I'm from Stoke in the uk but I've never actually seen meatloaf, let alone eaten it.
I've wondered a few times but not enough to Google it.
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It's possible. We certainly never had it, nor was it ever mentioned. My grandmother was Welsh from The Valleys. My grandfather from Collins Green, but they moved to the Westlands when it was a brand new estate. Theirs was one of the first houses built, so my grandfather got one of the better plots. Meatloaf just never ever happened, period. My ex-step father's mother lived over in Weston Coyney, again meatloaf never featured, but again she was from The Valleys. Her husband was a (coal) miner. Murdering a chicken was as fast as get cooking got. Vegetables literally did fall apart of your plate (overcooked is doing an injustice to the word).

Nutloaf only ever entered the scene via friends of my parents (hippies is the most accurate description of them and I loved being over their because I could eat whatever I wanted (they were vegan long before I even knew it existed)).

I do remember school (NUL Girls school) teaching us a 'loaf' style dish but that was tomato, cheese, breadcrumbs and egg I think, cooked in a loaf tin. It was actually very nice but died a death being something taught to a 12 year old who could actually already cook and was a dish aimed at teaching a child cooking from scratch. (I can distinctly remember cutting cheese up into distant sized cubes, grated coarsely & finely etc and then grilling (UK term) all for the same time to see the effect it had! Yep.... most had no idea. I just ate the cheese. Got into so much trouble for that because I was meant to be taking notes on it, describing how it was melting/burning and so on...lol.

I don't even remember the school canteen ever serving meatloaf in the entire 7 years I was there! Yet i do recall it being served at the boarding school i worked in in Surrey (also for 7 years).
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
It's possible. We certainly never had it, nor was it ever mentioned. My grandmother was Welsh from The Valleys. My grandfather from Collins Green, but they moved to the Westlands when it was a brand new estate. Theirs was one of the first houses built, so my grandfather got one of the better plots. Meatloaf just never ever happened, period. My ex-step father's mother lived over in Weston Coyney, again meatloaf never featured, but again she was from The Valleys. Her husband was a (coal) miner. Murdering a chicken was as fast as get cooking got. Vegetables literally did fall apart of your plate (overcooked is doing an injustice to the word).

Nutloaf only ever entered the scene via friends of my parents (hippies is the most accurate description of them and I loved being over their because I could eat whatever I wanted (they were vegan long before I even knew it existed)).

I do remember school (NUL Girls school) teaching us a 'loaf' style dish but that was tomato, cheese, breadcrumbs and egg I think, cooked in a loaf tin. It was actually very nice but died a death being something taught to a 12 year old who could actually already cook and was a dish aimed at teaching a child cooking from scratch. (I can distinctly remember cutting cheese up into distant sized cubes, grated coarsely & finely etc and then grilling (UK term) all for the same time to see the effect it had! Yep.... most had no idea. I just ate the cheese. Got into so much trouble for that because I was meant to be taking notes on it, describing how it was melting/burning and so on...lol.

I don't even remember the school canteen ever serving meatloaf in the entire 7 years I was there! Yet i do recall it being served at the boarding school i worked in in Surrey (also for 7 years).
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I can honestly say that id never heard of meatloaf until I was probably in my teens.
I've lived in stoke all my life, Bentilee, then Fenton then Heron Cross and never met anyone who has had it.
It was always thought of as an American thing (same way as Grits is American to me, no idea if other places have it and im not even sure what it is).
This was probably because it first came to my attention on some American TV show like The A Team.
 
Well here´s another one who never had meatloaf at home, probably (a) because my mum had never heard of it and (b) she has never eaten beef or pork in any form.
I might have eaten it once or twice in Venezuela, I really can´t remember.
 
garlichead said:
What about terrines? Any demand or are terrines more of a French thing.
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Terrines are definitely found here in the UK, though maybe they have fallen out of fashion somewhat. They are a French thing, for sure but have been made in the UK for probably hundreds of years. I suppose that a terrine is a type of meatloaf (or a meatloaf is a type of terrine) - though it wouldn't normally contain any breadcrumbs and sometimes will contain gelatine.

So if anyone wants to hit two birds with one stone then make a terrine containing gelatine and you can enter it for the current 'recipe challenge' as well as posting it here.

For some inspirational terrine recipes, see here: Terrine Recipes
 
Morning Glory said:
I suppose that a terrine is a type of meatloaf (or a meatloaf is a type of terrine) - though it wouldn't normally contain any breadcrumbs and sometimes will contain gelatine
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At our wedding reception, one of the big hits was a 3 layer chocolate terrine, totally vegetarian. So I'm guessing having had a quick look online, that a terrine doesn't have to have meat, or be savoury.

Having had a quick look at the definition, it seems that a terrine is defined by the porcelain cooking vessel and layers
a meat, fish, or vegetable mixture that has been cooked or otherwise prepared in advance and allowed to cool or set in its container, typically served in slices.
"a salmon terrine"
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Terrines are named after the earthenware dishes in which they are traditionally made. While seemingly 'special', terrines are really up-market meatloaves with layers that distinguish them from pâtés.
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SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I don't even remember the school canteen ever serving meatloaf in the entire 7 years I was there! Yet i do recall it being served at the boarding school i worked in in Surrey (also for 7 years).
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Anything meat-like at a school was what we referred to as "mystery meat", we were never sure.
 
Peloquin said:
It was always thought of as an American thing (same way as Grits is American to me, no idea if other places have it and im not even sure what it is).
This was probably because it first came to my attention on some American TV show like The A Team.
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Grits come from a type of corn called hominy. I don't like hominy and not a huge fan of grits. I would never go buy grits but if someone puts them in front of me I will eat them. Pretty bland for the most part but they do adopt flavors fairly well, so if you mix cheese in them, or scrambled eggs in them, etc. they are tolerable.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
At our wedding reception, one of the big hits was a 3 layer chocolate terrine, totally vegetarian. So I'm guessing having had a quick look online, that a terrine doesn't have to have meat, or be savoury.
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Definitely not always meat. They can be fish or vegetable based - always eaten cold (unlike meatloaf which can be eaten either hot or cold).
 
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