The combination of delicious and quickly cooked food is the dream of every cook who wants to get the perfect option with a minimum of effort. Mitlof meat bread refers specifically to such dishes: ten minutes for initial processing of products and an hour for baking, and as a result, a large, juicy and incredibly tasty chopped meat roll spreads aromas on the dining table. The dish came from England, although the Americans claim that this is their invention. In fact, already in the fifth century AD, meat bread was mentioned in Greek chronicles, so to some extent the recipe for mitlof can be considered Greek. In Russia, there is a similar meatloaf with different fillings, so this product is difficult to determine if it belongs to a particular cuisine in the world.
Traditional roll
Usually, several types of meat are used in the recipe, sometimes liver, mushrooms and vegetables are added, since in its pure form it is a rather fatty food. The recipe for mitlof, which is often cooked in England, is based on two types of meat: beef and pork, which are “diluted” with champignons. To prepare it, you need to take:
- 450 grams of ground beef;
- 350 grams of minced pork;
- 100 grams of champignons;
- 1 bell pepper;
- 2 onions;
- 2 eggs;
- 1-3 cloves of garlic (to taste);
- 8-10 strips of bacon;
- 100 grams of breadcrumbs or three slices of loaf + 60 ml of milk for soaking;
- a pinch of rosemary and black pepper;
- 2-3 tbsp. l vegetable oil.
Spices can be selected to your taste, because not everyone likes the aroma of rosemary, it is easy to replace it with another spicy herb.
How to cook minced meat for meat?
To make beef mitlof with vegetables turned out to be ideal, you need to use a meat grinder with the smallest nozzle or even use a blender to grind the ingredients. Pass the meat through a meat grinder twice with one onion and garlic. Peel sweet peppers from seeds and cut into cubes 1 cm wide, mushrooms - in small slices or also cubes, the remaining onion - in thin strips. Fry the onion in a frying pan in oil until the first color change with mushrooms, add pepper and sauté for another 2-3 minutes, and then add the resulting mass to the minced meat. Salt to taste, add spices and breadcrumbs soaked in milk, as well as eggs. Stir the minced meat thoroughly and let it stand for 15-20 minutes at room temperature so that the aroma of spices is revealed.
According to the recipe of some titled culinary specialists, some dried basil should be added, but not everyone likes this herb, so be guided by your taste preferences.
Shaping and baking
As usual, meat bread is baked in a rectangular shape, which is lined with foil (so that mitlof does not stick to the bottom). It is also convenient to use silicone baking dishes, although the crust in them is less ruddy.
Abundantly grease the mold with lean oil and place the prepared mincemeat in it, ramming it tightly with your hands and making the shape of the bread a little rounded. Next, top with bacon strips, tucking them under the bottom and gently pressing with your fingers. Place the meatloaf pan in the oven and bake at a temperature of 180-190 degrees for 60 minutes. When baking, a lot of juice will be allocated, but they should not water meat bread - fat will be enough from bacon.
Some ideas
All mitlof ingredients, except meat and onions, can be interchanged, because there are no special restrictions in the recipe. What else can be added to the stuffing:
- grated raw potatoes;
- cheeses of any kind;
- sausages, ham and other meat products, cut into small pieces or minced.
- cauliflower or broccoli, cut into small pieces or skipped through a meat grinder with meat;
- zucchini or zucchini grated on a grater of small or medium size.
All vegetables can be put raw in minced meat, or you can passer for several minutes in a small amount of vegetable oil. Mitlof with a whole egg inside turns out to be very tasty: it is put into the minced meat according to the recipe already boiled, wrapping inside in the center of the roll. If you are preparing large-sized meat bread, you can use several eggs laid in a row, so that when cut into slices, each piece has its own egg ring.
Christmas poultry roll
In the USA, turkey mitlof, which is most often served at the Christmas table, is considered more popular. Some argue that turkey is more traditional for American cuisine, others believe that this choice was made due to the low calorie content of minced meat.
The mitlof recipe in this embodiment includes the following ingredients:
- 800 grams of turkey fillet;
- one large onion;
- 220 grams of champignons;
- 100 grams of hard cheese;
- 100 ml of broth;
- 1 carrot;
- 1-2 eggs;
- 1 tsp mixtures of provence herbs;
- 2 cloves of garlic;
- 70 grams of breadcrumbs (in the American mitlof recipe they are often replaced with saltine crackers);
- 4 tbsp. l ketchup + 2 tbsp. l thick sour cream;
- 2-3 tbsp. l vegetable oil;
- salt to taste.
Step cooking
Initially, you should prepare the vegetables in the mincemeat base for the Christmas mitlof: chop the onions, peppers and mushrooms into small cubes, grate the carrots and cheese on a coarse grater, and chop the garlic in the press.
In a pan in lean oil, fry the onions until the first blush, then add the garlic and mushrooms, and after 3 -5 minutes, carrots and pepper. Strain all vegetables for about three minutes.
Grind the turkey fillet with a meat grinder, add eggs and spices, as well as salt and crackers soaked in broth.
Mix thoroughly, add ready-made vegetables and grated cheese, mix again.
Then put the mass in a baking dish, pre-lined with foil. Be sure to pay attention to the corners, because it is their shape that will give mitlof the look of a bread loaf. Mix ketchup and sour cream and with the resulting sauce cover the top of the meatloaf. Place it in the oven, preheated to 220 degrees, but after 10 minutes lower the temperature to 190 and continue baking for 50 minutes.
It is important to know
Sometimes during baking, the surface of the roll is cracked or completely broken in two: this is a signal that the stuffing was too dense and there was not enough liquid in the baking process. That is why during the kneading process, minced milk, broth or cream is added to the minced meat. The second method is the use of sauces to cover the top of the roll: most often used tomato paste or ketchup (they give a beautiful crust and a pleasant flavor), as well as mayonnaise or sour cream mixed with garlic and chopped herbs, as well as milk sauces with onions. Strips of bacon or pork peritoneum are also a great way to protect the integrity of the roll, but the main thing is to initially stuff the stuffing into the mold so that air bubbles do not come into play, which during heat treatment can contribute to the formation of cracks on the surface.
The finished mitlof should not be taken out of the mold immediately, since it can easily break, it is better to wait 10-15 minutes and only then carefully move it onto a flat plate (if there was foil in the mold, it is much easier to do this by pulling at its edges).
Typically, meat bread is served whole on a platter and cut when served. In no case should you cut the mitlof immediately, taking it out of the oven: the juice will flow out of it through the cuts. If you wait at least 15 minutes, the juice will be absorbed into the crumb, turning it into a juicy splendor.
How and with what to submit mitlof?
The energy value of a 100-gram slice of such a dish is on average 340-380 calories. Serve meatloaf in any form.
- Hot or warm: with a side dish of boiled potatoes, stewed vegetables or cereal (rice, buckwheat). Given that meat bread is quite substantial, it is with vegetables that it is best combined, helping the digestive system to cope with so many calories.
- Cold mitlof can be used in sandwiches and sandwiches with salad greens, various sauces, etc.
This dish goes well with vegetable slices of tomatoes and cucumbers, yeast-free bread and various gravy, especially if it is served as the main one. This is a good alternative to the whole baked bird, which is traditionally cooked in many families: cheaper, faster and to some extent tastier.