No, not to everything. If I read one more, "Bacon makes everything better!" article or post, I'll . . . well, I'll curse silently to myself. But it will be vehement silent cursing. Bacon is good and it has its place, but its place is not in everything. Like mayonnaise. No. Please.
It does, however, have a place in meatloaf. Or rather, around meatloaf.
See, remember we don't eat bread? Well, without bread, it's hard to keep a meatloaf from falling apart into a big pile of loose meat when it's cut. So unappetizing. I've tried a lot of other things to glue the meat together, without success. But then I decided to wrap the whole thing in multiple strips of bacon, as recommended by America's Test Kitchen.
I did it originally for the fat it would add to the very lean, grass-fed ground beef we buy from the farm up the road. But it turns out that wrapping the whole thing in bacon makes a fatty meat swaddle (mmm, meat swaddle) that holds the meat in a nice compact bundle for cooking.
Plus, it tastes really good. As you might imagine. Bacon is definitely the answer to bread-less meatloaf. Just please keep it out of my mayonnaise.
4 comments:
I agree not in mayo (ick). But with chocolate and toffee and bacon. My. God.
If you are a sweet and savory fan, it is utter ambrosia....
-moi
Or take your cupcake pan, circle each cup with a single strip of bacon, plop your meatloaf mix down inside and bake. Presto, individual loaves, and they pop out really clean, too.
Mmmmmmm. Meat swaddle.
I will present Meat Swaddle on the menu some time and I anticipate rave reviews.
Also, did you see the meatloaf recipe in CI that calls for gelatin? TOTALLY FRIGGEN WORKS.
And wow is that a good meatloaf.
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