Meatloaf: Pastel de Carne: Recipe

I'm a supposedly fancy-type cook but I really enjoy doing this so-called "simple" stuff as well. In fact, it's not so simple to do a great meatloaf (at least, not as good as my mom's). This one's based almost straight out of The New Best Recipe: Cooks Illustrated with just minor tweaking (for example, I decline the use of brown sugar in the glaze and my local meat guy doesn't carry veal). I used oatmeal as the "binder"; must be my Scottish heritage.

This one's fast, easy, pretty and darn tasty to boot. It'll be in the oven within about 10 minutes of when you start making it (if you get crackin' a little bit).

So, on with what I actually did:

Ingredients
Topping/glaze:

• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 1 T red wine vinegar

Meatloaf:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, medium, brunoisse [diced]
• 2 shallots, brunoisse
• 4 garlic cloves, fine brunoisse [minced]
  
  
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup quark [kwark] (sour cream or yogurt)
• ½ t thyme, dried
• 2 t Dijon mustard
• 2 t Worcestershire sauce
• ¼ t pepper sauce (I used habenero)
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 t ground pepper, white
  
  
• 510 gr ground beef [1#]
• 260 gr ground pork [½#]
• 3 T dried parsley
• 2/3 C fine rolled oats

Procedure

1. Oven at 175C [350F]
2. Mix the ingredients for the glaze in a very small saucepan (bowl)
• heat (microwave) until runny
• set aside for later
3. Sauté the onions - olive oil, medium heat
• add shallots & garlic after a couple of minutes
• soften the whole lot of them but don't brown them
  
• set aside to cool
4. In a bowl, mix everything else except the meat/oatmeal/parsley (use a fork)
5. Put the meat into a (bigger) bowl and add the sautéed onions stuff and the egg stuff. Blend (use a spatula or your hands). The mixture needs to be moist enough that it doesn't stick to the bowl.
   
• If it sticks, add some (whole) milk (or yogurt of something). If it's too wet and falling apart add some oatmeal (1 Tablespoon at a time).
6. Don't use a meatloaf pan. Shape this free hand (loafaly shaped) on a oven-proof tray or casserole.
7. Brush half of the glaze over the meat-shape.
8. Bake for 45 minutes and then...
9. Check the temp. At 70C [160F] it's done (Could take up to an hour)
• Remove and let it sit for 20 minutes (important)
  
• Take a picture
10. Brush more glaze over the loaf before serving
11. Good cold

Notes

1. Next time I'll double the pepper sauce (and it still won't be "spicy"; I'm just looking for the point where there's a flavour-note of the peppers - nothing too extreme.
2. I overcooked mine (I timed it by the clock but the internal temp got to 85!) - but it turned out quite okay - not too dry at all.

updated 23 feb: fixed an error in the garlic clove count; it was 4-5 (not 2)