Mini-Meatloaf

Meatloaf can be a tired, boring dish. Or, with some imagination, it can be a fresh, tasty dish. Sometimes tired and boring isn’t bad, especially since that usually includes easy. But add a couple of spices, and it’s still easy but you’ve add new and interesting.

This recipe adds coriander and fennel, giving conventional meatloaf a subtle, exotic flavor. The brown sugar sauce is used both to flavor the loaf and as a glaze.

There’s quite a bit of liquid in this recipe, but even so using lean meat might make it a little stiff after cooking. If you use lean beef, you might replace some of it with ground pork. I used 90% lean ground beef, and the bowls holding the loaves still had a bit of fat in the bottom. If you use leaner beef, you might substitute a quarter of it for ground pork to get a juicier meat loaf.

I used small, 10 oz baking bowls lined with foil, but four 6-10 oz foil ramekins would probably also work. You start with 16 oz of meat, then add about another 8 oz of ingredients, so 4 oz ramekins are probably too small. You could also use a muffin tin to make these, except the result would be more like meatballs than meat loaves. The smaller the loaf, the less the cooking time, so using a meat thermometer is certainly advisable.

If you want to stuff the loaves, foil ramekins might even be better. If you use these, you could start the loaf by lining the ramekin (after spraying it with non-stick cooking spray) with the meat mixture, leaving a cavity in the middle for the stuffing. You can then put the stuffing in the cavity and finish the loaf with a top layer. This is a neater solution than what I did, namely make the loaf, use my thumb to creat a pocket for the stuffing, then seal the pocket with my fingers.

Speaking of stuffing, the recipe suggests shredded Mozarella, but roasted red peppers and spinach might be tasty additions. Next time I make these, I’ll try that and update this post.

Besides being–usually–boring, another problem with meatloaf is that slab of ground beef on your plate. Even if it smells and tastes cool, it doesn’t look cool. It looks even less appetizing when it’s left-overs. Mini-meatloaf solves both the slab of ground beef and left-over problems. With this recipe, you get an individually-sized meatloaf, shaped like a large meatball, and glazed with a savory sweet sauce.

The first time I made this, I made three loaves, but they turned out to be a little big. Making four is about right, and gives the two of us another meal later in the week, or gives you a tasty and easy evening meal for a family of four. I could even see serving this as the entree in an informal dinner.

Green beans or mashed potatoes would go well with this.