Meatloaf with red sauce (and steamed vege)

Meatloaf and red sauce

There was a request from a follower of my facebook page to cook the meatloaf and red sauce, so I made it today. It was a little bit fiddly, as in there are a lot of steps, but it wasn't difficult to put together. I quite like the flavourings that go into the mince mixture. To make the mince, I diced rump steak and put it in the freezer on a plate for about 30 minutes. I found that I needed to turbo it a couple more times than recommended. There were still a few big chunks of meat after I had done the turbo at 0.5 seconds 8 times, so I did another couple of turbo blasts at 1.0 second and it was pretty evenly minced.

When it came to assembling the meatloaf, I think i spaced the proscuitto out a bit too much, which meant that it was a bit too long to fit into the varoma tray. The cheese I used was just regular tasty cheese. I did have some edam but I had forgotten it was for this and we ate it yesterday! Oops! The tasty cheese worked quite well though, so if you wanted to avoid buying a special cheese this is always an option.

Assembly of the meatloaf

Rolled meatloaf

I ended up having to squash the formed meatloaf down a bit in the end to fit it in the varoma tray to get the lid on without a gap. I also didn't add the vegetables straight away. I added the corn when there was about 12 minutes of steaming left, and the broccoli with 5 minutes left. I don't like soft, soggy broccoli, but if you prefer it a little more cooked then add it with about 7-8 minutes, depending on the size of the florets.

After steaming

The sauce! I have read a few times on various facebook pages about the red sauce. I have also seen it made at a varoma cooking class, but I have never made it myself until today. It makes A LOT of sauce if you follow the amounts in the recipe. It also isn't really a sauce, its more of a mash. Well, thats what I thought anyway! I ended up making just half the amount described in the recipe. I also followed the tip mentioned in the book of blending it at the end to make it more "sauce-like", but it still seemed more like a mash.

Red sauce

Once I had finished steaming the meatloaf, I turned a frying pan onto medium heat, and popped the meatloaf on to crisp up the prosciutto and give it a bit more colour. It only needed a couple of minutes each side.

Overall, it was a very tasty dish. The mince itself was nicely flavoured, and the addition of the ham and cheese made it a little bit different to the regular old meatloaf. I am glad I browned it on the frying pan afterwards, it made it a lot more appealing to look at! The "sauce" (mash) was really good too, very flavoursome and also something a little different to just having plain old mashed potato or sweet potato. I will definitely make this meal again! I look forward to trying out the mushroom sauce next time too.

Happy thermomixing!