Meatloaf

Ingredients

• 4.5 pounds Ground beef
• 1 Onion
• 2 slices Bread
• 4 Eggs
• 0.25 cup Milk
• Garlic salt
• Onion powder
• Mustard
• Sugar free ketchup
• 3 Brown sugar cubes
• 1 can Campbell's tomato soup
• Franks RedHot sauce

Method

The meatloaf depends on even binding and gentle cooking. Mix your ground beef with diced onion, torn bread, eggs, and milk — these are your binding agents. The bread, soaked in milk, swells and traps moisture; the eggs set the structure without making it dense. Add garlic salt, onion powder, and a moderate amount of mustard and ketchup directly into the mix. Work everything with your hands until just combined — overworking toughens the meat through excessive gluten development in the breadcrumbs and unnecessary myofibril alignment in the beef. You'll know it's ready when the ingredients no longer streak through the mixture, not when it becomes uniform putty.

Divide the mixture between two or three oven-safe dishes and press gently to level the tops. Run a shallow channel down the centre of each loaf — this isn't decorative. The groove allows heat to penetrate the thickest part more evenly and lets rendered fat pool away from the centre, preventing a dense, overcooked exterior around an undercooked core. Bake at 180°C for one hour. The meatloaf is done when the internal temperature reaches 71°C at the thickest point, roughly where that central channel sits.

While the loaf cooks through — at about the 45-minute mark — prepare the glaze. Dissolve three brown sugar cubes in a small amount of hot water, then whisk in a tin of tomato soup, 60 ml of ketchup, and 15 ml of mustard. The tomato soup provides body and umami; the sugar and ketchup add sweetness to balance acidity. Stir until you reach a thick, glossy consistency — light red in colour, pourable but not runny.

Remove the meatloaves from the oven, let them rest for three minutes, then coat the tops generously with the glaze. Return to the oven for ten minutes until the sauce sets and the edges begin to caramelise. Let rest five minutes before slicing — this allows the juices to redistribute through the meat-cookery structure rather than pooling on the plate. Slice thick enough that each portion holds together cleanly, roughly 2 cm wide.