Blue cheese and pinenut meatloaf

Photographer: Emma
Serves 8

I am not a huge meat eater, however when deciding which recipes to cook from our Fisher & Paykel cookbook this recipe was the first to catch my attention.  I think it was the lure of the pinenuts and blue cheese that did it for me – a combination which proves hard to resist!  Equally as appealing also is the simplicity of this recipe and the potential for experimentation. You could do an Asian variation using ginger, roasted cashews, lemongrass and coriander.  Or a Mexican version flavoured with jalapeños, lime and coriander into which you could add refried beans and finely chopped red capsicum.  The possibilities are endless!

Whatever combination you decide upon however, I recommend using top quality minced beef.  It contains less fat and just tastes better.

INGREDIENTS


½ cup pinenuts, toasted
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 strips bacon, finely sliced
1 kg minced beef
225g sausage meat
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fresh oregano, finely chopped
1 sprig fresh rosemary, finely chopped
65g blue cheese, crumbled

METHOD


1. Preheat the oven to 175ºC on bake and grease a large loaf tin.
2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and sauté the onion, garlic and bacon until the onion becomes translucent.
3. Mix all the ingredients together (aside from the blue cheese) until well combined. I used my (clean) hands to do this. Place half of this mixture into the greased tin then sprinkle the blue cheese onto, avoiding the edges. Place the rest of the mixture on top of this.
4. Place in the oven and bake for one and a half hours. You may need to pour off any excess liquid around the loaf at the end of cooking.