Meatloaf on the Kettle - Part Deux

I mentioned a little while back that Julie from She Smoke inspired me to cook some meatloaf on the Weber Kettle. Now I don't usually make meatloaf, but Julie's comments about the "a few dried herbs and an egg to a hunk of ground beef, shaped it into a loaf, poured over a bottle of ketchup and cooked until well done," meatloaf of her youth peaked my interest. We certainly have a shared memory there!

Her new recipe for a tasty modern meatloaf, inspired me to take a crack at one of my least favorite childhood dishes. Hell, if Julie could do it, so could I. So I gathered the ingredients, most of which I had in the house and set out to conquer Meatloaf On The Kettle! Now I don't know about you, but I rarely follow recipes. In this case I made a conscience decision to follow Julie's instructions to the letter.

Take a minute and read Julie's recipe here. Don't worry, I'll be here when you get back....

Got that down? Good.

So I gathered my vegetables, trimmed them, chopped them, whipped them and mixed the meat and was left with two ingredients; the bread crumbs and the milk. This certainly had to be an over-site on my part so, I reread the recipe and found no instruction on what to do with the bread crumbs and the milk. What do I do with these rogue ingredients?

I called out to my wife and asked her what to do with them. She resisted the urge to tell me what I REALLY could do with them and she sat down and read the recipe. "They're not mentioned," she tells me. "But I would add them to the mix. Breadcrumbs are always in meatloaf, but I'm not sure what to do with the milk."

What was I going to do with this stuff? Julie had mentioned in her post that this recipe was "based on my recipe in She-Smoke (Not Your Mama's Meatloaf, pg. 164)," so I got out the book and read that recipe. "Oh, soak the breadcrumbs in the milk." Wait a minute, I'm using store bought canned bread crumbs. Soak them in the milk?

After some discussion with the wife, I dump the breadcrumbs into the meat mixture and about 1/2 of the milk. This made the wettest pile of meat I've ever encountered for a meatloaf. I let the meat mixture sit as I build my fire. I get the kettle settled at 300 degrees and return to the kitchen to shape the loaves.

Julie suggested making smaller loaves instead of one large one, so I fashion four loaves from the pile of meat. The meat mixture is light and airy and extremely moist. So much so, it has a hard time coming together. I resist the urge to add more bread crumbs, and work to roughly get the meat settled into an approximate loaf shape.

They go on the kettle, cook for a little more than an hour and come off as some of the tastiest meatloaf I've ever had. Thank you Julie! A couple of things, you'll notice that the meat is pretty craggy (is that even a word?) While the cracks and crevices did add to the outer layer's crunch, next time I'll work to smooth the loaves. In a re-heat of the leftovers a glaze was a much needed and nice touch.