My Meatloaf Dilemma

[Steerpike]

Everytime I make meat loaf I get this accumalation of goop at the top of the meatloaf...it's kind of brownish gray and nasty tasting...whats the most efficiant way of getting rid of this? Does this just happen to me or what?

[Denninmi]

1. 6A SE Michigan

No, that pretty much happens to everyone, as far as I know. It's the melted connective tissue from the ground meat, I think, probably collagen, or at least, that's my best guess as to what it is.

Probably the only real way to deal with it is to scrape it off a couple of times during the cooking process.

Or, you might try cooking the meatloaf on a foil lined grill pan or roasting pan with some holes punched out for drainage, rather than in a pan. I've seen Martha Stewart and other chefs do this on TV, and I've tried it and it does help with the issue of meatloaf swimming in juices and fat. I think some of the "glop" will still cling.

Perhaps after removing the "glop" you could put some type of a coating on top -- catsup and brown sugar to make a glaze, or crushed crumbs?

[grasswire]

2. I've never seen that.

And I've made a hella lot of meat loaf over the years. Goop? Ick.

What temperature is the oven? Not hot enough maybe?

I've seen goop from meat only when using frozen ground beef in a pan to brown. Is that the kind of goop you are talking about?

Do you use any kind of crumb or oatmeal in your mixture? That will absorb juices.

[Tesha]

3. I know the stuff you mean..

I form the loaf by pressing in the edges so they don't touch the pan,
and that stuff appears on the liquid around the bottom. I just take it off.

for some reason I always thought of it a cooked blood.....

[marybourg]

4. Cook it until a thermometer stuck in the center reads 160 deg. The

gook will be gone by then. Older meatloaf recipes call for cooking for approx 1 hour, but that doesn't give you the safe cooking temp modern standards require.

[tango-tee]

5. That's odd, I've never had that happen.

And I have no idea what could be the cause of it. I'm sorry I'm not being of much help here.

Perhaps if you share your recipe with us, oven temperature, the kind of pan you use, etc. we might be able to get to the bottom of this? Because it does sound unappetizing for sure.

BTW, my mom made the World's Greatest Meatloaf before her stroke. I'll be happy to ask her!

[Vinca]

6. Maybe you're not cooking it long enough or using beef that is too fatty.

I bake my meatloaf for about a half hour longer than I think I should and it always comes out perfect. I use 90% lean ground beef. I just switched from using a metal pan to a thick, Pyrex dish and for some strange reason the texture is a little different. It was fine before, but it's even better now.

[Warpy]

7. Low quality ground beef with a lot of connective tissue in it

will often have that stuff come to the surface. One thing that can help is cooking the meatloaf on a rack. Another thing that helps is having adequate extender in the meat loaf, crumbs or matzoh meal or the like, to absorb liquid as it cooks. The worst way to do a meatloaf is in a loaf pan. There is always a layer of something or other on the outside, usually fat but sometimes the collagen you're describing.

The goo can be scraped off before serving, but that leaves the outside of the meatloaf looking less appetizing. Just slice it before you serve it and they'll never know.

[pscot]

8. As the meat cooks

it releases liquid with meat proteins in it. the proteins coagulate into that grey stuff. Furthur cooking will cause it to caramelize into the browned bits you scrape off the bottom of the pan to make gravy with.

[hippywife]

9. I like pscot's answer best.

Definitely bake it as someone else suggested in something other than a loaf pan to give it room to release the juices. I usually make mine in smaller round loaves in a large glass casserole. They bake faster that way, too. And I mix up some mushroom gravy to pour over it for the last 15 minutes of baking, and the juices all incorporate into the gravy, adding more flavor.

:hi: