Glazed All-Beef Meatloaf
"Every all-beef meat loaf we’ve tasted has had the same problems—chewy texture and uninteresting flavor, making it more of a hamburger in the shape of a log than bonafide meat loaf. In the past, when we wanted a great meat loaf, we turned to a traditional meat-loaf mix consisting of beef, pork, and veal. Could we create an all-beef meat loaf to compete with this classic? Supermarkets offer a wide selection of “ground beef,” and after testing them alone and in combination we determined that equal parts of chuck (for moisture) and sirloin (for beefy flavor) were best. Beef has a livery taste that we wanted to subdue, and the usual dairy additions to meat loaf didn’t work. Chicken broth, oddly enough, neutralized this off-flavor and provided moisture. For additional moisture and richness, we included mild-tasting Monterey Jack cheese, which also helped bind the mixture. To avoid pockets of oozing hot cheese in the meat loaf, we shredded the cheese and froze it briefly. Crushed saltines, our choice for the starchy filler, provided texture, but we felt our meat loaf needed more “sliceability.” Surprisingly, gelatin gave us just the smooth, luxurious texture we sought. We seasoned the mixture with onions, celery, garlic (all sautéed), thyme, paprika, soy sauce, and mustard. A traditional ketchup glaze crowned our flavorful all-beef meat loaf...."