It’s taken me a while to think of something original to say about 9-33: Teriyaki Meat Loaf. Neither component is revolutionary at this point–there’s not too many people left in 2016 that are unaware of either concept, and Asian fusion is nowhere near a new culinary trend. There’s a million versions out there–here’s just a few. I’ve even already covered meatloaf on here before–9-28: Stuffed Meat Loaf.
Simply Delicious’ version of teriyaki is pretty close–usually it’s composed of soy sauce, mirin, and ginger. It was probably more difficult to source mirin in the 1980s, so they used sherry instead. Anyway, after the jump you can read about yet another way to do meat loaf.
These cards get tricky with the ingredients with they list some of them in the second column–I’ve totally skipped over them before and lost whole parts of the dish for doing that. Always read your whole recipe before you start–pulling out (and checking that you have) all the ingredients before you start is a good practice too.
Ingredients. Usually, I would have just used tamari for this, but I had maybe a tablespoon left in the bottle which wasn’t going to be enough. I took it upon myself to make a Frankenstein-like blend of sauces in the fridge to cover the “soy sauce” requirement–this included a VERY old bottle of pre-made teriyaki sauce and some dollar-store dark soy sauce along with the tablespoon of tamari. Did I have “regular” soy sauce too? Of course. But that wouldn’t be as fun.
I also used a mix of red and green bell pepper for this, which seems to be what they show in their pictures. Panko for breadcrumbs as always.
Meat with egg, pepper, breadcrumbs, and beef paste with some water. It’ll all mix together, don’t worry.
Veggies chopped and ready.
I feel like this could use some more sesame flavor than just the seeds on top, so I’m adding some toasted sesame oil into the pan when I sauté the veggies.
Grated some fresh-ish ginger into my sauce–I always keep some ginger root in the freezer for recipes like this or things like tea. It grates pretty well frozen, and keeps for a long time.
Getting some color (and flavor, thanks to the sesame oil) on the veggies.
Combined the veggies with the meat and some of the sauce mixture. I didn’t run mine through the processor or blender because it was already pretty smooth, but it’s probably a good step to take if it’s not.
I had used more meat than what was called for, so I had to split it into two pans. There was also a LOT of sauce, so they appear to be swimming in it. Most of that will absorb down into the loaf though as it cooks. Put both of these pans on a sheet pan, stuck them in the oven, and set the timer for 45 minutes. I undershot the time since these loaves were a bit smaller and my oven tends to cook above temperature the longer it runs.
Checked it at the 45 minute mark and stuck my digital meat thermometer into one of the loaves–yikes! It’s definitely cooked, and then some. Good thing there was all that extra liquid in there to keep it moist.
Here’s the loaves after they baked. Not exactly the most beautiful, but definitely not swimming in sauce like they were when I put them in.
Final shot–a nice end piece. I have to admit–this was a pretty good loaf. It had a beautiful crust on most of the top, and was moist all the way through. We even froze some and defrosted it a week or two later and it was still pretty damn good.
Grade: A
