Fatted Calf and Other Meatloafs

[Smokey Lew]

Got a new cookbook for Christmas and it had a couple of meatloaf recipes in it I wanted to try. The book is called "Primal Cuts, Cooking with America's Best Butchers" by Marissa Guggiana. The book profiles (from the dust jacket) "more than 50 of our most gifted butchers and share their favorite dishes, personal stories, and cooking techniques." Pretty interesting concept for a cook book.

Anyway, I love meatloaf and tried out butcher Taylor Boetticher's Fatted Calf recipe. Fatted Calf is the name of the town in California he has his business in. Go figure. What's interesting about this meatloaf is that it combines beef with sweet pork sausage and diced up bacon in the mix of meat. It also has a nice blend of ketchup, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce and horseradish in the meat mix and for the glaze on top of the loaf. It came out very tasty.

The turkey meatloaf recipe was provided by butcher Ron Savenor. His shop is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His recipe was pretty straight forward and I took the liberty of adding some of the sweet pork sausage and a couple of tablespoons of Suckle Busters Hoochie Mama BBQ rub to the turkey meat in the mix. The mix also had minced onion, carrot, and celery in it plus a couple of table spoons of club soda. Not sure what that did but I added it along with bread crumbs, egg, ketchup, garlic, salt, and pepper. This meatloaf came out really nice. The flavor profile is one of my favorites for meatloaf now.

I also added some chicken legs and thighs dusted with Chef Merito Chicken Seasoning and finished with Iron Chef General Tso's Sauce & Glaze. It came out pretty tasty but very gooey and sticky. Nice finger licking snack food.







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[bbquzz]

Lew as usual that is a great lookin' cook. I did a couple Griff Loaves yesterday and the only difference I could notice between our cooks is your weather looks 100% better than here in Ohio Any chance you would share first recipe with the sweet sausage and bacon?

 

[Smokey Lew]

Lew as usual that is a great lookin' cook. I did a couple Griff Loaves yesterday and the only difference I could notice between our cooks is your weather looks 100% better than here in Ohio Any chance you would share first recipe with the sweet sausage and bacon?

Hey Buzz, I have attached a scan of the page from the book that has the Fatted Calf meatloaf recipe.

 

[bbquzz]

Thanks Lew, little more involved than a Griff Loaf, but looks worth the effort. With 3 - 5 inches of snow coming I need comfort food.

 

[Vermin999]

Great looking meatloaf Lew. Never thought to put horseradish with a a meatloaf, How was it?

 

[bigwheel]

Thanks for the recipe. Would be highly tempted to bump the terminal temp up to 160 or so. Old book wrote back before ecoli etc. Now this sweet sausage aspect has me puzzled. Do that just mean it aint hot or something? Or maybe it something yankees eat cuz I aint heard of it before. Thanks.

bigwheel

 

[bbquzz]

Had the same thought as BW about the 145° temp. Checked the book out at Amazon, looks like a great cookbook, what are your thoughts Lew, is it worth $25?

 

[Vermin999]

Thanks for the recipe. Would be highly tempted to bump the terminal temp up to 160 or so. Old book wrote back before ecoli etc. Now this sweet sausage aspect has me puzzled. Do that just mean it aint hot or something? Or maybe it something yankees eat cuz I aint heard of it before. Thanks.

bigwheel

Sweet sausage means not hot. Had me puzzled for a while too,I never heard it before till I moved to CA.

 

[Smokey Lew]

Had the same thought as BW about the 145° temp. Checked the book out at Amazon, looks like a great cookbook, what are your thoughts Lew, is it worth $25?

Hi Buzz, I think the book is well worth it. It's interesting to hear how these butchers got their starts and their idea of butchery. They all use local sources for their meat and vegetables for cooking.

 

[Smokey Lew]

Thanks for the recipe. Would be highly tempted to bump the terminal temp up to 160 or so. Old book wrote back before ecoli etc. Now this sweet sausage aspect has me puzzled. Do that just mean it aint hot or something? Or maybe it something yankees eat cuz I aint heard of it before. Thanks.

bigwheel

Yea, I had some reservations, as well. I think the difference is that the butchers all use grass feed livestock and the fat content is much leaner. You can go with lower temperatures with these kinds of cuts. I used standard feed lot meat provided by my local grocer so I took the temperature up to 152 degrees before pulling it.

 

[Goober]

That still a little low for uncured ground meat recipes. If you figure the micro bugs live mainly on the surface of the meat..once it gets ground up they get a free to the inside. May just give a light case of the squirts in a worst case scenario. Who knows?

 

[Nick Prochilo]

I agree with Jeff, any ground beef here goes to 160*.