Meatloaf with Tomato and Basil Sugo

Seasons: Autumn and Winter
Meals: Lunch or Dinner
Serves: 4

This is such a wonderfully easy recipe for someone just starting out in the kitchen. It can be made in advance, and is tasty for leftovers the next day. For a new cook, get them started with a cooking hamper full of essential ingredients including the versatile sugo that adds flavour to this meatloaf recipe.

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Step 1: Preheat fanforced oven to 180C.

Step 2: Using your hands, mix 1/4 cup of Tomato and Basil Sugo together with all the other ingredients, except flour. Shape mixture into a rectangle, then roll to coat in flour and place in a loaf tin. Press down firmly.

Step 3: Bake meatloaf for 40 minutes or until cooked through. If you have a meat thermometer the internal temperature should be 70C. Leave to rest.

Step 4: Warm the remaining Tomato and Basil Sugo and serve thick slices of meatloaf topped with spoonfuls of the sugo .

Maggie's Tip: Comfort food again. To me, meatloaf requires lots of sauces and chutneys from the larder to be truly delicious. The meat mixture also needs to be mixed by hand or it just doesn’t taste the same. Sometimes I add slow roasted tomatoes to the top of the meat during the cooking process. And sometimes I add dried porcini mushrooms to the mixture for extra depth of flavour. If you’d like to try this, cover 80 grams dried porcini with Verjuice and reconstitute them in the microwave on its lowest setting for 5 minutes, then chop and mix in with the other ingredients.

Step 5: Although I usually serve meatloaf hot, any leftovers make a great lunch the next day, thickly sliced and placed in a brown bread sandwich with some pickles.

Ingredients

500g 2 cups Tomato & Basil Sugo
500g sausage mince minced beef or lamb and pork
60g 1 free range egg
2 tbspn mixed herbs freshly chopped
1 onion finely chopped
15ml 1 tbspn worcestershire sauce
1 tspn salt flakes
¼ tspn freshly ground black pepper
For dusting plain flour