I like leftovers. I love having yesterday’s dinner for lunch because something warm and satisfying is often better than a pb&j that got squashed in my purse. While Ryan was in South Africa, I decided I didn’t want to cook every night of the week so I wanted to make something that would yield a lot of leftovers. Meatloaf seemed like a hearty and delicious option. And this recipe fit the bill. I had it for a few days of lunch, and there was even some left over for Ryan to eat when he returned to London tired and hungry.

In my search for a tasty meatloaf recipe, I came across one from Yotam Ottolenghi. To be honest, I’m intrigued and intimidated by Ottolenghi recipes. Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israeli chef based in London. He has multiple restaurants and many cookbooks. His food tends to be influenced by Israeli and Mediterranean flavors. And he’s well known for creating delicious vegetable based recipes. Obviously I’ve ignored the vegetable part and gone straight for the meaty recipes. 

For my birthday last year, Ryan and I went to his restaurant on Upper Street and it was very good. I also felt, it was slightly hyped up. I was expecting to have my mind blown by the food, but everything was served small plate style, and it was kind of expensive and overall I felt that the cost didn’t match up to my expectation. But, I will say the dessert was amazing. The window display overflowed with dessert options, each looking so tempting it was hard to choose. My overall takeaway of the experience was that everything we ate was a combination of interesting and unusual textures and flavors.

And the same is true for the recipes in his cookbooks. When I was first learning to cook, I wanted to get ideas about how to do more with vegetables. I borrowed his book Plenty from the library and I was intimidated. Some of the ingredient lists were a long and had items that I wasn’t familiar with and wasn’t sure I wanted to buy. I wasn’t ready for risk taking and complex cookery.

So when I came across this meatloaf recipe, I was nervous. I read through the recipe and thought, yeah I can do this. Sure, it has some ingredients I wouldn’t usually put in meatloaf, like cinnamon or pine nuts. But, I was willing to try something new. And in fact, I think this is a perfect starter Ottolenghi recipe. Even though the ingredient list is a bit long, it includes items that are all familiar and seasonings you probably already have in your house. I think this recipe will push you out of your comfort zone, but only just the right amount. I thought the texture and combination of this meatloaf was fantastic and really different from the usual slab you’d get at a diner. This recipe also made me receptive to trying other Ottolenghi recipes. This one went well, so I feel confident enough to go back to Plenty and try to tackle some more complex recipes and learn to do awesome things with vegetables.

The original recipe (found here) includes recipe for a yogurt-tomato salsa. I didn’t make that, but you might want to consider it. The first day I made this the meatloaf was so moist that I didn’t need any gravy, ketchup, salsa, or sauce. It was delicious just plain. But as with all meatloaf, after a few days in the fridge it started to get a little dry and would have benefited from the salsa. Since I didn’t make it, I just used barbecue sauce and that was delicious as well.

Finally, this recipe asks you to grate some tomatoes and an onion. I highly, highly, highly recommend using a food processor. I grated the onion using a box grater and started profusely crying. Seriously, I had to stop occasionally because I couldn’t see. Use a food processor and save yourself!

Messy level: The assembly for this recipe is fairly straightforward. You mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then press it into a large pan. It’s the prep where you get messy. You’ll need to do a fair bit of chopping and then the grating requires a food processor which is more equipment to clean. The actual food won’t get everywhere as you cook, but you will have a pile of dishes at the end.

Beef, Lamb and Bulgur Meatloaf

 

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Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

1 hour

 

Author: Yotam Ottolenghi

Serves: 8-10

Ingredients

• 150g/ ⅔ cup bulgur wheat
• 400g/ 14 oz ground lamb (if you go for a full pound of meat that's ok)
• 400g/ 14 oz ground beef (if you go for a full pound of meat that's ok)
• 1½ teaspoon ground allspice
• 1½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 medium onion, peeled and roughly grated
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 20g/ ¾ cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
• 20g/ ¾ cup cilantro leaves, chopped
• 60g pine nuts, roughly chopped
• 2 medium tomatoes, cut in half and roughly grated (discard the skins)
• olive oil

Instructions

1. Put the bulgur in a medium bowl. Cover with 2 cups of warm water and let soak for 15 minutes.
2. Heat the oven to 350°F/180°C.
3. Line a 8x12" pan with parchment paper.
4. Drain the bulgur and press it to squeeze out excess moisture.
5. In a large bowl, add the bulgur, lamb, beef, allspice, cinnamon, salt, grated onion, garlic, parsley, cilantro, pine nuts, and grated tomato. Mix well until everything looks evenly distributed.
6. Transfer the mixture to your prepared pan. Use your hands to press the mixture down so it is tightly packed and even across the pan.
7. Brush the top of the meatloaf with a little bit of olive oil (less than 1 tablespoon should do it).
8. Bake for 30 minutes, or until brown on the top and cooked through.
9. Let cool slightly, then serve.

3.2.2925

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Basically, Ryan’s job gave him a promotion and a transfer to their London office. Exciting right?! I’ll be honest, I’ve felt a ton of emotions about all of this. Excitement, over living in a new city and seeing new sights! Fear, of starting somewhere new. Stress, over all the logistics of moving. Proud, of Ryan’s great accomplishment. Sadness, over leaving my wonderful job and moving away from family and friends. And happiness, that Ryan and I are able to take on this wonderful adventure and live abroad, which is something we have both dreamed about.

It’s been a few weeks since we made the decision and started announcing it to the people closest to us, and now my top emotion is definitely excitement. There’s tons to do as we prepare for our move, but I can’t wait for the museums, experiencing a new culture, and traveling. I have always wanted to see the Globe Theater. I’ve been dying to return to Rome. And now I can do those things more easily. But also, I can’t wait to have new food adventures.

To start the food adventures, I ran out and bought a British cookbook as soon as we officially decided we were going. Barnes and Noble only had one British cookbook, but it’s ok because it was the one I wanted. I bought Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain. This book is gorgeous! Full color pictures, an image of the food for each recipe, and great pictures of places, restaurants, and people from all over Great Britain. However, the book showed me that I need to learn some British jargon because I’m not totally sure what a “knob of butter” equals or how exactly to know if I’ve made “squiffs and quiffs” with the mashed potato topping.

Truly, I don’t know anything about British food, so I decided to start with the only dish I slightly knew about: shepherd’s pie. The recipe is so flavorful, aromatic, and satisfying. It’s the kind of food that as you eat it, the pace of the world seems to slow down, and staying snuggled up in the apartment flat (I need to practice practise my British lingo) feels like the best thing ever.

I’ll be honest though, the first time I made this, it came out soupy. It tasted delicious, but it was all wrong in texture. The problem was, I followed too closely to the recipe and didn’t listen to my intuition. That might sound counter intuitive, because shouldn’t the recipe lead me in the right direction? Yes, sometimes. But pots, pans, ingredients, and heat levels are different across kitchens and so sometimes the timing in a recipe isn’t what works best for you. For example, the recipe said that a liquid would thicken in a few minutes. It wasn’t thickening, but I moved on anyway, and that’s how I had soupy shepherd’s pie. The next time I made it, I really waited for it to thicken even though it took way longer than a few minutes. My end result was much better because I trusted my eye and watched what was happening in the pan.

So for this recipe, don’t worry too much about times and instead be patient and trust what you see and feel. It will be worth it and you’ll end with something delicious. Most importantly though, if you have any recommendations or advice about London please leave it in the comments!

This recipe is adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain

Ingredients:

2 yellow onions

2 cups chopped carrots

1 tbsp olive oil

3 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, divided

sea salt & white pepper

leaves from 8 sprigs of thyme

2 bay leaves

1 lb ground beef (or veal or lamb)

2 tbsp all-purpose flour, divided

zest from 1 lemon

1 cube of chicken stock

1/3 cup of beer (preferably something English!)

2 pounds russet potatoes (I’ve also done this successfully with waxy yellow potatoes)

1 cup of milk

1/2 white mushrooms, thinly sliced

3/4 cup light cream

1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Chop the onions and carrots into small, bite sized pieces, about 1/3 inch.

2. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter in a large sauce pan. Add the onions and carrots. Season with some salt, pepper, thyme and bay leaves. Cook for 8-10 minutes, until the onions have softened a bit.

3. Add the flour. This will soak up some of the excess liquid. Then add the ground meat, lemon zest, and stock cube. Stir everything until it is all well mixed. Use a wooden spoon to break up the meat.

4. Once the meat starts to brown and is sizzling, add the beer. Then, add just enough water so that the meat is 1/2 covered by liquid.

5. Bring everything to a boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer with the lid askew for 1 hour. Stir occasionally.

6. While the meat is cooking, peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters. Put the potatoes in a large pot, cover with cold salted water. Bring the water to a boil and cook until the potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork (this can take anywhere between 15-30 minutes).

7. When the potatoes are done cooking, drain the water. Let them sit an steam for a minute or two. Then, mash the potatoes. Add in the remaining butter and slowly add the milk. Mash until you have nice fluffy potatoes.

8. When the meat has been cooking for 30 minutes, heat the oven to 350°.

9. When the meat has been cooking for about 1 hour, add in the sliced mushrooms. Then add the cream. Turn up the heat a bit and bring everything to a boil. Allow to thicken on it’s own for a few minutes

10. Slowly sprinkle in the remaining tablespoon of flour. You might not need the whole thing, but stir in the flour until the meat mixture has thickened. You want the meat to be like it’s in a thick gravy and when you pull a spoon through the pan, it takes a little bit liquid to fill in the spoon’s path.

11. Transfer the meat to an oven safe casserole pan. Sprinkle the cheddar cheese on top.

12. Spoon the mashed potatoes in an even layer over the meat. Make it pretty or make it messy, whatever look you like. Or try to make a Union Jack, like I did.

13. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes, or until it’s a bit golden on top.

14. Spoon out the finished pie into a bowl or plate.

Messy level: This recipe has a lot of steps, ingredients, and dishes. It’s not hard work, but it does take a bunch of work, so I’m giving it 4 stars. This is the kind of meal you make on a leisurely weekend day because it takes a long time and there’s a lot of clean up. Transferring things between pots, pans, strainers, and casseroles there is lots of opportunity for spills, splashes, and messes. It’s a good recipe, but it’s not clean.

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