I have been on a hunt to make the most delicious moist meatloaf.
I have cooked our traditional recipe for meatloaf, replacing breadcrumbs for almond meal, but I just wasn’t happy with the texture, I found it dry. So I remembered an ingredient that I cooked with a while ago and it works really well.
Can you guess the secret ingredients in my meatloaf? It is truly O-mazing.
A while ago I asked a customer where I was working how to cook this strange fruit, I followed her instructions and wow it was great. Can you guess? it starts with an O….Okra!
Okra is an amazing fruit, when cooked it releases a slimy goo, I remember it had a slimy texture. So I added okra to my meatloaf together with another O-mazing ingredient.
A nutrient dense ingredient, inspired by on my recent outing to The Paleo Way with Pete Evans.
Offal! Yes the second secret ingredient is Liver.
After blending the liver in a food processor to make a paste, I added it to the meatloaf mixture and it softened quite remarkably.
My husband and kids ate this meatloaf twice without even realising!!!
Yayyyy!! It smells great while its cooking in the oven.
Ok, so please tell me if you guessed those two ingredients.
The first recipe I did with the okra and liver I added 4 okra blended with the other vegies. I found I had to add 2 tbls of almond meal as it was just too soft to handle, but oh my it was so delicious especially eaten the next day.
Therefore you could do it that way or today I just added one okra and it was easier to handle.
Please comment how your meatloaf mixture was using this recipe or both methods.
- 3 semi/hard boiled free range eggs peeled
- 1 kilo (2.2lbs) of grass-fed beef mince
- 100g (0.220lbs) of raw liver blended to make a paste
- 2 large free range eggs
- 1 garlic clove
- 1-2 carrots peeled and cut in half
- 1 red onion peeled and cut in half
- 1-2 tender light green stalks of celery (inner stalk)
- handful of fresh parsley
- handful of spinach
- 1 zucchini cut in half
- 1-2 mushrooms
- 1-2 okra
- 1/3 cup tomato passata
- 1/2 tbls tomato paste
- pepper
- 1 tbls and a half of sea salt
- 1/2 tbls Italian dried herbs
- 250mls of homemade broth
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees (356F)
- In a hand blender or food processor chop/pulse up the garlic, carrots, celery, onions, parsley, spinach, zucchini, mushrooms, okra (all the vegies) until all blended however fine or coarse you like. Place this into a large bowl.
- Add the mince, 2 eggs (Not the boiled ones), raw minced liver, passata, tomato paste, pepper, sea salt and herbs into the same large bowl.
- Combine it all with your hands well, ensuring all the vegies get mixed with the meat and the ingredients all come together really well for about 2-3 minutes. Mix really well. 🙂
- Once all the meatloaf mixture is combined, add this mixture to a large flat alfoil lined baking tray. Shape it into a flat rectangle.
- Lay your boiled eggs on the bottom half of the mince mixture (rectangle) spread apart in a line. You are going to pull the top of the rectangle shape of mince over the eggs to make a loaf. Shape your meatloaf in a log shape making sure you press in the sides and top evenly. The more you shape it the less likely there will be any holes around the eggs.
- When you have a nice log shape sprinkle a little sea salt on top and place it in the oven to bake for 40 minutes.
- Meanwhile add your broth to a pan and simmer until hot and starts to thicken a little.
- When the juices run clear from your meatloaf remove from the oven and slice to serve.
- Add 2 tbls of broth to each serve. The broth will soak into the meatloaf.
- Reminder: if you use 4 okra you may need to add some almond meal.
- When I used 1 okra (stated in this recipe) i didn't need any almond meal to bind.
- Experiment with 1-2 okra depending on the size.
