No Ordinary Meatloaf

Cooking for Family and Friends, Monday Morning Cooking Club Style

We love nothing more than cooking for family and friends, whether it’s a Friday night dinner, Sunday lunch or even a mid week quickie for the family. And we’ve all been inspired by the recipes and stories from the Monday Morning Cooking Club books.

For those of you who have not yet met us, here’s a bit of background about the girls of the Monday Morning Cooking Club.

I am what we call the chief pot stirrer of the group of six women (all from Sydney) who have been cooking together on Monday mornings since 2006. We started out with a seed of an idea to write a cookbook for charity by collecting the best recipes from some of the best cooks in Sydney’s Jewish community.

We are all nurturers and passionate cooks with varied backgrounds, from business to teaching and from law to charity work. Our combined heritage spans Poland, Hungary, Shanghai, Russia, England and South Africa. We first met through Sydney’s Jewish community, where our shared passion for food brought us together and cemented a lasting bond.

The girls and I have made it our mission to share the stories of our wonderful and diverse food-obsessed community, preserving recipes from past generations for our generation, and preserving recipes from our generation for the future.

With our goal ’to produce a book that could sit beside any great chef’s cookbook in any bookstore’, we published our first book ‘Monday Morning Cooking Club – the food, the stories, the sisterhood’ in April 2011 (2nd edition, March 2013). As at July 2014, we have sold 25,000+ books in Australia and overseas and helped raise $400,000+ along the way for charity.

The book is full of recipes and stories from Sydney’s Jewish community – heartwarming stories such as Raie’s below.

One of my favourite family-style recipes in the book is ‘Aunty Raie’s Meatloaf’ on page 65. Not only for the AMAZING (best ever!) meatloaf, but for the story that goes with it.

The late Raie Rosenberg, a close friend of my family, was sixteen when her father moved the family to Sydney. She had already begun to develop a strong interest in food and cooking. She happily settled into life in a new city, married Ron and started a family of her own.

When Raie and Ron opened Aunty Raie’s Deli in Woollahra in the eighties, she lovingly cooked all the house dishes herself. Her specialties included chopped liver, egg and onion, a huge variety of frittatas and, of course, her meatloaf. With her chatty personality and sense of humour, she adored the local customers and thrived on the camaraderie that existed in the area. Raie passed away in 1997. She is remembered not only for her exceptional cooking but also for being an integral Woollahra village personality.

Raie’s best-known specialty was her incredible meatloaf. She sold it across Sydney to many cafes and sandwich bars, and customers would queue outside her deli at lunchtime to buy one of her famous meatloaf sandwiches.

I always remembered visiting Raie in her deli many years ago and tasting her meatloaf for the first time. When  I was thinking of all the recipes that ‘just needed’ to be in the book, this was one of them. I managed to track it down through Raie’s sisters, although no-one had an exact recipe recorded. So I guess this is the MMCC version of Aunty Raie’s meatloaf and I am so pleased it has now become part of my repertoire.

It is served here with Marny’s potato salad (page 217) and works equally well with chicken or turkey mince. 

Aunty Raie’s Meatloaf

No ordinary meatloaf
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Course Mains
Servings 6

Ingredients
  

  • 1 kg beef mince 2 1/4 lbs (ground beef)
  • 1 whole onion peeled and grated
  • 1 whole Carrot peeled and grated
  • 1 whole egg beaten
  • 80 g breadcrumbs (1 cup) fresh
  • 2 cloves garlic crushed
  • 2 tbsp tomato sauce (ketchup)
  • 2 tbsp worcerstershire sauce
  • 1 handfull parsley flat leaf ,chopped
  • salt + pepper to taste

Glaze

  • 80 ml tomato sauce (1/3 cup) (ketchup)
  • 80 ml worcerstershire sauce (1/3 cup)
  • 60 g brown sugar (1/3 cup)
  • 80 ml water (1/3 cup)

Instructions
 

  • Place all the ingredients for the meatloaf into a large bowl and mix together with your hands. Season generously with salt and pepper and allow to rest for several hours in the fridge.
  • Preheat the oven to 180°C. Lightly grease a large roasting dish. With wet hands, mould the meatloaf mixture into a long log and place it in the dish. The thinner (and longer) the log, the more delicious crust you will have. If you prefer, you can make two smaller logs.
  • Mix together the ingredients for the glaze and pour it over the meatloaf. Cook for 1 hour, basting often, until glazed and brown.
  • Note: To make fresh breadcrumbs, removed the crusts from good-quality white bread or sourdough and process until fine crumbs are formed.

This post was originally written as part of Let’s Lunch (#LetsLunch), a twitter-based virtual lunch club where anyone interested can join this monthly ‘lunch date’. A topic is posted at the beginning of the month, everyone now takes it in turns, and all posts are made on the same day by this random but lovely group of food bloggers, writers and people who just love cooking from all around the world. Anyone can join at any time – just join us on twitter by searching and adding the hashtag #LetsLunch. And check out the others’ posts – they are wonderful! This month’s topic was food for sharing with friends and family in honour of the launch of our first book in the USA in September 2013.

Eleanor’s Surf and Turf at Wok Star

Linda’s Pumpkin Pie at Spice Box Travels

Anne Marie’s Almond Cheesecake Sammy Bites at Sandwich Surprise

Grace’s Zha Jiang Mien at Hapa Mama

Jill’s Homemade Corned Beef at Eating My Words

Lucy’s Sweet Potatoes with Cane Syrup at A Cook and Her Books

Pat’s Red Curry Noodles at The Asian Grandmother’s Cookbook

Betty Ann’s Sisig Rice at Asianin America

Lisa’s No Ordinary Meatloaf at Monday Morning Cooking Club

 

 

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12 Comments

    1. Lisa Goldberg

      Me too! LOVE it. And this one makes the best sandwich filling (though that might interest you particularly…) xx

  1. Lucy

    These are lovely memories, Lisa! I’m so looking forward to getting your cookbook and trying out the recipes. I love the picture here ~ any significance to the necklace on the flatware?

    1. Lisa Goldberg

      Thanks Lucy. Can’t wait to hear what you think of the book once you get your hands on it! The necklace has a hamsa on it – the hand that wards off the evil eye. If you look at our book, you will see that it appears on most pages…not that we are superstitious or anything….:)

  2. Annabelle

    There’s no comfort food like meatloaf. Congratulations on the US release!

    1. Lisa Goldberg

      Thanks Annabelle, I think it is the ultimate comfort food. And makes such great sandwiches the next day as well!

  3. Betty Ann @Mango_Queen

    What a lovely story about your aunt and this meatloaf looks fantastic. I can’t wait to try out your recipe and explore your cookbook. Thanks for sharing. It’s been fun doing Let’s Lunch with you and the group!

    1. Lisa Goldberg

      Thanks Betty Ann! It’s been fun doing Lets Lunch with you too. See you next month 🙂

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