s SMOKED MEATLOAF *** s   



Yields: 0


Ingredients


 
Instructions
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5-23-13 good, cooked in oven though
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For the last couple of days, I’ve been craving some comfort food and in particular meatloaf. Not my Mom’s meatloaf (sorry Mom, love your meatloaf, too), but The Collucci Brother’s Meatloaf that was featured on Bobby Flay’s Throwdown. I’ve made it before and the recipe can be found online in a bunch of places (although some say to use carrots which the one in the book doesn’t have), but I’ve never posted it up here. This time I was going to do some tweaking on it to suit my palette.

All the Players

Ingredients

Vegetable oil
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
2 lbs 80/20 ground beef (I used 1 lb 80/20, 1lb 90/10)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
dash of hot sauce ( I used Cholula)
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
3 slices of white bread, torn into small pieces and soaked in cold water
1/2 cup Italian-seasoned dry bread crumbs
1/2 cup of ketchup

Items I added to the recipe

Stubs BBQ rub
1/2 cup Stubb’s BBQ sauce
1/4 cup Cheddar Jack cheese
Items pictured but not used A-1 and Shredded Parm cheese

Instructions

Set up your Egg to 400F using the placesetter (legs down) for an indirect cook. Choose whatever wood you like, I used mesquite. If using an oven, preheat to 375.
Heat the oil in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and celery, and saute until tender, about 7 minutes. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, combine the celery mixture, ground beef eggs, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and season with salt and pepper and BBQ rub. Squeeze the water out of the bread and add to the mixture. Mix in the dry bread crumbs and the cheddar jack cheese.
Shape into a firm loaf on a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil (for ease of cleanup)
Mix the ketchup and BBQ sauce and spread over the top
Transfer the meatloaf to the egg/smoker/oven and cook for 45-55 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165.

I didn’t want the baking sheet on the Egg, so I grabbed a corner of the aluminum foil and slid the meatloaf onto the grate. I then folded up the edges of the foil to prevent the grease from dripping down onto my placesetter and creating a mess.



I didn’t really time how long it took to cook. I used my Maverick ET-73 remote read thermometer to keep an eye on the internal temp while whipping up some mashed taters and preparing some sides and watching some TV. Hey, it was cold outside, I wasn’t going to sit out there and freeze.


Sliced it up and plated it.



As you can see, the meatloaf was nice and juicy, not dry at all. The smoke added a nice touch, as did mixing in the Stubb’s rub and adding Stubb’s BBQ Sauce to the ketchup topping. The cheese, however, did not add anything. In fact, we couldn’t even tell it was there. I think next time, I’ll still add the cheese, but in addition, add a pocket of cheese in the middle. I think that might help out. All in all it was a really great meatloaf. I don’t know why Bobby Flay thought his Roasted Vegetable Meatloaf with Balsamic Glaze would have beat it, but then again, I’m not sure why he would think any of his odd entries to Throwdown would.

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