Meatloaf rules, I’ve decided. Meatloaf is the ultimate comfort, homey food, making you feel warm and sated and like a child again, with Mummy, Granny or favourite Auntie serving you home cooked, delicious meal after a month of school dinners.
I’ve recently made the Swedish cabbage meatloaf, kalpudding, with mega-caramelised shreds of cabbage on top and the experience was almost metaphysical. You can cook my standard meatloaf this week or wait for the appearance of kalpudding (processing recipes takes sadly much longer than eating their outcomes) and I’d strongly recommend the former. Serve the meatloaf with boulangeres potatoes and ideally pomegranate jelly, but failing that, with sweet chilli sauce.
For the meat-abstainers, there could be braised savoy cabbage and roast potatoes. I don’t know what it is about cabbage but cooked well, it is the epitome of home cooking; simple, tasty and frugal. Also autumnal. Also, faced with the real possibility of dearth of Spanish aubergines, Italian tomatoes and French peppers in the UK, we might have to start loving what we can grow…
A fish idea this week might be grilled balsamic bream, the fish slightly cheaper and less prized than bass which I think I actually prefer. You could also try slow cooked haddock or another white fish – cooking at low temperature does wonders to fish texture. Serve it with zingy carrot salad – getting used to appreciating root vegetables too…
For a special dinner, maybe for the weekend, cook venison steaks with red wine sauce. And for a week of breakfasts – a batch of pineapple scones.
Cake – how about a coconut loaf? or Spanish tarta de Santiago? More to choose from in contents pages, filter by cakes – that’s my favourite filter. And subscribe to the newsletter if you haven’t already!