This dish has recently become very popular: they talk about it in culinary programs, and more and more recipes are appearing on the Internet. I learned how to cook it, chose the 3 most popular recipes, which I present here. I photographed in detail the process of preparing the first and simplest of the recipes. At the end of the article, after the recipes, I present what I read from the history of meat loaf, where did it even come from?

To prepare it, you will need a special rectangular form (can be bought for 150 rubles) and foil (cover the top of the form with meat loaf while baking in the oven).

From my point of view, meat loaf has several advantages, here they are:

• It’s even faster and easier to cook than cutlets: you just need to put everything through a meat grinder, mix and bake in a mold (no need to shape, bread crumbs...)
• You don’t need to get used to its taste - all family members will eat it as if they’ve been eating it all their lives, because it’s really very similar to our cutlets (only the shape is different).
• Convenient to eat as sandwiches with bread.
• This is a variety that increases your experience level as a cook and always makes your family happy (otherwise all the cutlets, and cutlets...). And here is something new - square cutlets :)
• It can be prepared with fillings (in our opinion) from cheese, bell peppers, fried mushrooms, eggs... but you don’t need anything to sculpt and wrap it separately, the process takes less time, it’s much simpler: just put everything in the mold layers and bake in the oven.

Recipe No. 1. The simplest meat loaf

Ingredients: 1 kg. meat, 2 eggs, 2 medium potatoes, 2 slices of white bread soaked in milk, onion - 1 head, garlic - 5 cloves, mustard - 4 tablespoons, ground black pepper, salt and tomato paste for greasing.

Cooking method:

1. Pass the meat through a meat grinder with onions, potatoes and garlic.
2. Add raw eggs, mustard, bread soaked and softened in milk, salt and ground black pepper to the mixture.
3. Mix everything thoroughly and place in a buttered rectangular loaf pan. Or you can add boiled eggs at this step: place half of the minced meat on the bottom of the mold, place half the minced meat on top in a row, lengthwise, lay out the whole peeled boiled eggs one by one, cover with the other half of the minced meat on top. In this case, the finished cut bread will be very interesting - with a boiled egg in the middle.
4. Cover the pan tightly with foil

Recipe No. 2. Puff pastry with bell peppers and vegetables

Ingredients: 1 kg. meat, 2 eggs, 1 small zucchini, 1 carrot, 2 multi-colored bell peppers, 1 tomato, 2 slices of white bread soaked in milk, onion - 1 head, heavy cream (>30%) - 200 grams, garlic - 5 cloves , dry basil, vegetable oil, ground black pepper, salt and tomato paste for greasing.

Cooking method:

1. Pass the meat through a meat grinder with bread soaked in cream (do not squeeze the bread), add eggs, seasonings and salt. Mix the minced meat thoroughly.
2. Chop the onion and carrots and fry together in vegetable oil; while the onions and carrots are frying, take care of the pepper.
3. Add bell pepper, chopped into strips, to the pan with the onions and carrots,
4. Cut the tomato into cubes and add to the pan with the vegetables. Fry until done.
5. Cut the zucchini (small) into small cubes and fry separately in vegetable oil until golden brown; while frying, add the garlic passed through a press to the zucchini.
6. Divide the minced meat into 2 parts, place one part in a mold greased with butter, forming sides from the minced meat, or making a depression in it for the filling, then put a layer of fried vegetables (salted and seasoned to taste), cover the top with minced meat again. The vegetable filling should be inside the minced meat.
7. Cover the pan tightly with foil
8. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for 40 minutes.
9. Remove the foil, brush the top of the meatloaf with ketchup (to brown) and bake for another 10 minutes until the top is browned.

Recipe No. 3. Layered meat bread stuffed with cheese and raisins or prunes

Ingredients: 1 kg. meat, hard cheese - 250 grams, 1 egg, 1 potato, 4 tablespoons mustard, walnuts - 0.5 cups, raisins or prunes - 0.5 cups (optional), 2 slices of white bread soaked in cream, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, hot ketchup and a little olive oil for greasing, salt and ground black pepper.

Cooking method:

1. Pass the meat through a meat grinder with potatoes, walnuts, add egg, mustard, seasonings and salt. Add raisins (or finely chopped and soaked prunes until soft) to the minced meat. Mix the minced meat thoroughly.
2. Grate the cheese and mix with bread soaked in cream (do not squeeze the bread), add a little salt and pepper - this is the filling for meat bread.
3. Divide the minced meat into 2 parts, place one part in a mold greased with butter, forming the sides, that is, making a depression in the minced meat for the filling, then put a layer of filling, cover the top with minced meat again. The vegetable filling should be inside the minced meat.
4. Make holes in the top of the meat loaf before the filling, so that the filling, if it starts to boil inside, does not tear the bread and leak out, and steam would escape through these holes. Two holes are enough. Brush the top of the minced meat with olive oil.
5. Cover the pan with foil
6. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for 40 minutes.
7. Remove the foil, brush the top of the meatloaf with ketchup (to brown) and bake for another 10 minutes until the top is browned.

What is meat loaf and where did this recipe come from?

I got curious (I got into an argument with my brother), and this is what I found out

Meat loaf is of European origin. The first mention of meat loaf appears in the history of mankind in a cookbook - the Apicus manuscript (Rome) back in the 5th century!

Meat bread is the national dish of Germany and Belgium, it is also a relative of the famous German and Swedish meat balls.

The English-speaking population of the planet calls meat loaf nothing more than MeatLoaf, where meat is meat, and the word loaf symbolizes the rectangular shape characteristic of bread; Americans prepared meat loaf back in the days of colonization. But then it somehow disappeared from the American table and appeared again only in the 19th century.

It is interesting that meat bread takes pride of place in the national cuisine of no less than 20 countries, and among them, in addition to those already mentioned, are the Philippines, Mongolia, Italy, Greece, and even Vietnam, where it is called giò and is rather stewed. rather than baked.

Usually the main ingredients of meat loaf are minced meat mixed with white bread soaked in milk or cream and raw eggs and baked whole in the oven until cooked.

To shape meat loaf, it is not necessary to have a special rectangular baking dish; sometimes meat loaf is shaped by hand and baked on a regular flat baking sheet.

Classic meat bread is made from beef, but lamb and pork, chicken and turkey are also often used.

That’s it, I have satisfied my curiosity regarding meat loaf, and I hope that you have too.

All recipe photos

Bread is made not only from flour, but also from meat - a vivid example of this is made from minced meat. Essentially, meatloaf is a dish that is a cross between sausage. Many still remember how in Soviet times they sold delicious meat loaves in grocery stores. Today you can also buy them, but they are not of the same quality. But this is not a reason to completely abandon this delicious meat dish.

The dish got its name meat bread as a result of its external similarity - rectangular in shape, to an ordinary loaf of bread, and since its composition, in addition to a loaf or other type of baked goods, also includes meat (minced meat), the bread was called meat bread.

Meat bread made from minced meat in the oven is widespread in European countries. In England, minced meat is called meatloaf. There are a lot of recipes for making meat loaf. Often cheese, mushrooms, liver, and boiled quail eggs are added to its composition.

Today I want to show you how to quickly and easily prepare meat loaf in the oven - step-by-step recipe with photos.

Ingredients:

• Minced pork - 150 gr.,
• Minced beef - 150 gr.,
• Minced chicken - 150 gr.,
• Loaf - 3-4 pieces,
• Milk - 100 ml.,
• Onions - 1 pc.,
• Egg - 1 pc.,
• Black pepper - a pinch
• Salt - to taste
• Ketchup - 2 tbsp. spoons,

Meat loaf in the oven - recipe

Cooking meat loaf in the oven begins by mixing three types of minced meat in one bowl.

Soak pieces of white bread or loaf in milk for 5-10 minutes, depending on the degree of staleness. Squeeze out the bread (loaf). Pass it through a meat grinder.

Peel the onion and also grind through a meat grinder.

Combine minced meat, bread and onion in one bowl. As you can see, the principle of cooking meat loaf in the oven at this stage is very similar to cooking.

Beat one egg to make the minced meat sticky with the bread.

For the taste and aroma of the meat loaf, add ground black pepper and salt. Instead of black pepper, you can use other spices if you wish.

Mix all the ingredients of the meat loaf in the oven thoroughly with your hands until you obtain a homogeneous consistency.

You can use a mold for baking meat loaf from ceramic, porcelain, glass or silicone. In this case, a rectangular shape is most often used, approximately the same as for baking bread. I used a silicone mold.

Place the minced meat loaf in the pan, pressing it tightly with your hands. To ensure that the product acquires a beautiful crispy and golden crust, use a pastry brush to coat the meat loaf with ketchup or tomato sauce.

Bake in the oven at 180C. The finished meat loaf will rise slightly in volume and be covered with a beautiful dark red crust.

Remove it from the mold and place it on a flat plate. Only after cooling should the meat loaf be cut. This way, the slices of bread made from meat will not crumble and fall apart. Minced meat bread just like other meat dishes, they are served in addition to side dishes and salads.

Meat loaf in the oven. Photo

Meat bread baked in the oven in Bavarian style has a completely different taste. I'm sure many of you have heard of him. Unlike the meat loaf recipe described above, Bavarian minced meat bread has a reddish tint, given to it by monosodium glutamate and inclusions of lard.

Ingredients:

• Minced pork - 500-600 gr.,
• Eggs - 1 pc.,
• Loaf - 200 gr.,
• Milk - 150 ml.,
• Starch - 2 tbsp. spoons,
• Water - 50-70 ml.,
• Onions - 1 pc.,
• Spices for minced meat: a mixture of peppers, paprika, ground ginger, coriander.
• Spices for sprinkling bread: mustard and coriander seeds, cumin.
• Fresh lard - 100 gr.,
• Nitrate salt - 10 g.,
• Vegetable oil for greasing the pan and bread.

Bavarian-style meat loaf in the oven - recipe

Soak the loaf in milk. Squeeze it out and pass it through a meat grinder together with the onion cut into several pieces. Add to bowl with minced meat. Add spices and nitrate salt. Dissolve potato or corn starch in cold water. Add to the mixture. Mix all meatloaf ingredients. After this, use an immersion blender to puree the meat loaf mixture from the minced meat until pureed.

Due to the nitrate salt and additional grinding it with a blender, the mass will turn out to be red in color and similar to a pate. Now cut into small pieces. Add to base. Stir with a spoon. The mixture for preparing meat loaf in the oven in Bavarian style is completely ready. Apply vegetable oil to the baking dish. Place the mixture into it. Grease the top of the bread with sunflower oil as well.

Sprinkle Bavarian-style meatloaf with mustard seeds, coriander, and cumin. Bake at 170C. from 30 to 40 minutes. Depending on the height of the bread and the features of your oven. If desired, you can cover the meat loaf with foil before putting it in the oven, and then remove it 5 minutes before it’s ready. As in the previous recipe, the meat loaf is sliced ​​only after it has cooled.

Minced meat bread - homemade recipe

A very easy and popular quick meat dish - meat loaf, it always turns out well and everyone likes it! Meat loaf is not only delicious, but also a budget-friendly option for a quick homemade meal. The recipe for minced chicken bread is so simple that even children can easily prepare it! Prepare delicious meat loaf at home with various interesting additives, and your table will be decorated with a real light meat masterpiece made from affordable products, which is ideal with meat loaf!

How to properly prepare meat loaf or as they also say meat loaf?! First of all, we will prepare minced chicken, since minced chicken or a mixture of several types of meat is best suited for meat bread (for example: chicken/pork or chicken/beef or the best minced meat from several types of meat at the same time). What I liked most was the loaf of their mixture of minced chicken and pork in a 3:1 ratio (3 parts chicken and 1 part pork), this minced meat is perfectly juicy and has an excellent structure and taste.

1. For one loaf of bread we take 600 g. fresh minced meat and add finely chopped onion to it. Cut the onion with a sharp knife into very thin strips, which, additionally, cut through the top with a knife and press with your hands so that the onion half rings are completely invisible in the minced meat and at the same time give all their juice and aroma to the finished meat loaf.
2. Separately, remove all the pulp from regular white bread and soak in milk. If you use baked milk to soak the bread, then your meat loaf will generally be phenomenally tasty... with the delicate aroma of baked milk! After a short soaking, lightly squeeze out the milk and add all the bread to the aromatic minced meat.
3. To bind and improve the taste of minced meat products, add two chicken eggs to the mixture and begin thoroughly kneading. It is preferable to knead with your hands or, if you don’t want to do this, use a food processor. Be sure to add salt and spices to the minced meat for the bread - it can be black pepper, allspice, coriander, nutmeg, basil, rosemary, ground dill - according to your preference. After kneading, let the minced meat rest and rest for a while.

If you want to decorate a little and enrich the taste and appearance of the meat loaf, put a few inside the mold for originality. Or, as an option, it could be, which are also added entirely inside, putting half of the minced meat in the mold, putting in the cucumbers and then covering with a layer of minced meat on top.

I prefer to decorate meat bread with vegetables: green peas, bell peppers, herbs, mushrooms, boiled carrots - chopped into pieces and added directly when kneading the minced meat.

Next, as they say, it’s a matter of technique….grease the pan with oil (a fireproof pan for baking bread; it’s very convenient to use a disposable foil pan for baking meat loaf). Sprinkle it thoroughly with breadcrumbs (the breadcrumbs can be mixed partially with semolina, it will absorb excess moisture and at the same time decorate the bread). We put the minced meat in the mold, giving it the silhouette of a heaped loaf of bread. Then sprinkle the top with sesame seeds and bake in the oven at 170 degrees for about 35 minutes. Next, increase the temperature to 190°C and cook until golden brown! Cool and only then start slicing. We will serve

Lately, it is almost impossible to find quality meat products in stores. There’s no need to even talk about sausages, but in a product like bread, they generally put everything they can. That's why I cook it at home myself. It doesn’t take much work, and the taste and naturalness are not comparable to store-bought.
To prepare it, I use minced pork and beef in almost equal proportions, 700 grams each.

Peel 4 large onions

Cut them into small cubes

Peel a lot of garlic (4-5 heads) and squeeze through a garlic press into the minced meat.

Add 5 home eggs, or 7-8 hatchery eggs.

Cut half of regular stale pan bread into pieces, soak in a small amount of water or milk.

After the bread has soaked, grind it to the main mass. Add 1 teaspoon ground black pepper and 1 teaspoon salt.

Also add 300 grams of semolina.

Mix the whole mass very well and beat it so that excess air is removed from it and so that the bread does not turn out to be porous later.

Next, take foil and cover the molds with it. To make it easier and more convenient, I turn the mold upside down and wrap it around the outside, then carefully remove the foil and place it in the mold.

Grease the inside of the foil with vegetable oil and distribute the mixture among the molds, filling them 1/3 full. Tamp well and smooth on top.

We bake the bread in a preheated oven at t170 C for one hour. Do not take out the bread right away, as they may fall apart. You should let them cool completely, and only then remove them from the molds, remove the foil and cut them. By the way, they can be baked without molds, on a regular baking sheet. However, I don’t like it that way, because during frying they crack on the walls of the oven, which then takes a long time to wash :).

Bavarian-style meatloaf is the great-grandfather of all meatloaves, the very first recorded recipe for dishes of this kind. His invention is associated with a very real historical figure: the dish was invented for his master by the personal chef of Elector Charles II, who ascended to the Bavarian throne in 1776.

On the one hand, this meat bread is very different in consistency from what we are used to. On the other hand, this is the easiest recipe for meat loaf to repeat at home, because our kitchen equipment, of course, cannot compete with what professional meat loaf producers have, but it is definitely better than what a butcher of the late eighteenth century had!

What is Bavarian meatloaf made of? Made from pork and beef. There should not be more beef than pork. Pork should be fatty. To be sure that it is fatty enough, you can take pure lard, but not more than 20% of the total amount of meat. Bavarian-style meat loaf should also contain crushed ice (a necessary technological component).

Mandatory seasonings are salt and marjoram. Acceptable are oregano, nutmeg, dry ginger, pepper. Inadmissible - onions, garlic, chili, curry.

Any fat that becomes hard when frozen and is suitable for high temperatures is suitable for greasing the mold. Those. All animal fats are suitable, but most vegetable fats (with the exception of coconut oil) are not suitable.

All. There shouldn't be anything else in Bavarian-style meatloaf. No bread, no starch, flour, eggs or other binders. Neither inside, nor for sprinkling the mold. They should not be in any German meat loaf at all, because all meat loaves are pure, shell-free sausages that have nothing to do with bread. They are simply baked in bread pans.

The first operation is to grind all the meat (and lard, if used) into small pieces convenient for a meat grinder. If there are veins, we clean them from the veins.

Mix the meat with seasonings and place in the freezer for 30-60 minutes. Stir as you go so that the meat is evenly frozen.

We coat the inside of the metal mold with animal fat and also put it in the freezer.

While the meat is freezing, we crush the ice into smaller pieces so that it does not break the meat grinder. Crushed, it should be between 100 and 300 grams per 1 kg of meat. Immediately after crushing, place the ice back into the freezer.

Scroll the meat through a meat grinder with a fine nozzle.

Mix ice into the minced meat and grind the minced meat in a meat grinder in a second circle, also through a fine nozzle. Ideally, you should use a sausage cutter here. It is thanks to him that factory-made meat bread is so elastic and finely divided, more like sausage. Ours will be much rougher. But ours is exactly the same as the first Bavarian meat loaf was more than two centuries ago. Well, that is, he was even rougher - there were no meat grinders yet.

Set the oven to preheat to 170 C. Place a bowl of water at the bottom of the oven.

Knead the twice-ground minced meat for a couple of minutes with a mixer fitted with a thick dough attachment - this will compact it, expelling the excess air that remains after the meat grinder. It's even better to use a food processor with a large screw, which is even closer to a sausage cutter.

Remove the mold with the frozen fat and compact the minced meat tightly into it.

If you want, you can make a notch on the surface of the minced meat with a knife. Bavarian meat loaf is cut with diamonds. Why? Look at the napkin that is visible in the photographs of the finished product. The flag of Bavaria is white and blue diamonds. This is precisely why the cut for this type of meat bread is exactly like this. For others there may be another, but for Bavarian - either nothing, or diamonds. It's like a brand name.

Bake Bavarian-style meat loaf in an oven preheated to 170 C on a medium level for 90 minutes without air circulation. After the first hour of baking, remove from the oven the bowl of water that was at the bottom.

The resulting meat loaf has an elastic consistency and is easy to cut.

It can be consumed both hot and cold.