kicking it old skool

While I love fusion flavours, Thai food and sushi, sometimes there's nothing better than a meal that harkens back to those rose-coloured 1950's that never really existed except in advertisements for eggshell blue refrigerators. I'm talking about meatloaf. It's a pretty contested meal with vocal camps on either end of the meatloaf debate. You either love it because it reminds you of your mother's cooking or you venemously hate it for the exact same reason. Me, I'm a meatloaf lover and I guess that's because my mom never turned out a bad meatloaf recipe.

So when I found myself with almost a pound of ground chicken, a meatloaf sounded like a pretty reasonable dinner. But I should warn you, ground chicken is quite different from the traditional ground beef. Let's face it, the raw texture is pretty icky stuff. It's mushy and sticky and did I mention mushy and sticky? It's bad enough raw (which is why I use a spoon to mix all the super-sticky ingredients rather than my bare hands) and even when cooked, the texture is much softer than beef, which for some can be a bit off-putting. A chicken loaf also has to be strongly flavoured because a bland meatloaf is a bad meatloaf that will leave you stranded along with all the other meatloaf-haters. But warnings aside, this meatloaf is wonderful. It's nicely flavoured with lots of fresh garlic and the grated zucchini and oats work as a binder to really improve things texture-wise.

This meatloaf is pretty darn yummy. Next time I make this recipe, I'm totally doubling the sauce used for the topping. The amount listed is perfect for topping the meat while it cooks, but I ran out of ketchup and would have loved more sauce heated up and served alongside for dipping purposes.


Serving this kicked-up retro feast totally put me in the mood for afternoon heels and a pretty apron. Now if only I could weasel myself matching teal kitchen appliances....

garlic & zucchini chicken meatloaf
1 lb ground chicken
1/2 grated zucchini
1 egg
1/2 c quick oats
salt & pepper
8 cloves of garlic, minced
2 T worchestershire sauce
1 T ketchup

topping:
2 T ketchup
2 T mango chutney

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Blend all everything but the topping ingredients into a large bowl and mix everything well with a rubber spatula. Pat into a loaf pan and bake for about 10 minutes.

2. Stir up the topping ingredients in a small bowl or measuring cup. Remove meatlof from the oven and spread the chutney mixture overtop. Put back in the oven to bake for another 45 minutes or so until meat is done. Slice and serve.