Salsa Meatloaf with Tequila Canned Beans

November 18, 2016

“There is nothing like a visitor from another continent to confuse you about your own homeland…One night an Indian friend came to dinner…He asked me to help him figure out American cooking, at which point I drew a blank. He said: “I would like to cook some American dishes, but it is hard for me to tell just what American food is.”

-Laurie Colwin: “How To Cook Like An American”

More Home Cooking

In the three decades since Colwin pondered the definition of American cooking, lemongrass, miso, tahini, pomegranate molasses, and bok choi have all become commonplace on supermarket shelves. Salsas and hot sauces require entire aisles. Fresh loaves of bread sit alongside piles of tortillas, giant oval naan, and newspaper-sized packages of lavash. My refrigerator holds three different bottles of soy sauce: dark, light, and an expensive artisanal brew, sprinkled sparingly at table.

Let’s not even get started on olive oils, vinegars, or salt varieties.

Urban consumers have become blasé about this wealth of choices. We have come to expect it, even demand it.

This isn’t about expensive or fancy food. It’s about the food people in America eat.

American food.

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This Mexican-influenced meatloaf comes to the IK via Jacqueline Higuera McMahan, a journalist and cookbook writer. By mincing carrot, pepper, scallion, and salsa, McMahan brightens an all-too-often-beige meal, making it colorful on the plate and in the mouth. Serve doctored black beans alongside–brightened here with tomatillo–and you’ve got a meal that’s impossible to stop eating.

The IK has doctored beans before, and this time round wasn’t much different, recipewise. Some ground New Mexico chile was left over from the meatloaf recipe, hanging around with nothing to do.

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So we gave it a reason for being, tossing it into a sauté pan with olive oil and garlic. A goodly amount of fresh lime juice was added in. Some leftover tomatillos were husked, washed, quartered, then permitted to greet their friends garlic and lime. The beans emerged from a can after significant struggle.

Well, more accurately, the can put up a fight. You’d think a woman with carpal tunnel and various other afflictions, all of them impacting her arms in screamingly painful ways, would have an automatic can opener. Nope. Not for nothing did she name this blog the insufficient kitchen.

So this can of black beans, it put up one hell of a fight. Your heroine retrieved the paring knife kept for just such eventualities. Every kitchen should have a knife like this, a garbage-y knife kept expressly for prying open wayward bean cans or books wrapped in acres and acres and acres of tape (surely you get these too?), as if the contents were a rare piece of Wedgewood and not some crummy paperback.

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So the IK goes at the bean can, rocking the knife point beneath the snagging bit of lid refusing to free itself from the can. She’s careful, because a tetanus shot is not in her plans, and lo, the damned thing snaps free. And black bean goop splatters everywhere: the curtains, the windowsill, the IK’s hair.

The IK, she has a lot of hair. Maybe you weren’t aware of this. Her whole life, she’s had a lot of hair. And for whatever reason, her meds make her hair grow like crazy. So she has even more hair. With black bean goop in it.

It’s not exactly a fashion look, even in the Bay Area.

Yea verily, she did curse, though not as much as she last Tuesday.

Doctoring beans concluded with the additions of salt and tequila. Did your hostess drink any? Do you have to ask?

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Moving along the meatloaf (note: notes are covered in black bean goop spatter…on first page of a new notebook, no less).

You as meatloaf pilot have a great deal of latitude in this recipe, determining which meats will comprise your loaf, controlling onionization levels (onionization will not be found in the OED. We understand each other, oui?) and spicing.

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This recipe calls for salsa. We used leftover tomatillo sauce from Rick Bayless’s Tomatillo Braised Pork Loin, which, as noted, stand alone beautifully as a salsa. Because the IK loves spicy food, we doctored it with a few slices of serrano pepper and some fresh raw tomatillo, but you need not do any of this. You can run on down to the store, buy your favorite salsa, and dump it right on in.

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Do not be put off by the raw meatloaf, which may appear watery, loose, and  enormously unwieldy. Unlike, say, our nation, it will come together while cooking. In terms of yield–about two pounds–our household of two rather meager eaters tackled this enthusiastically. So don’t fret. If you celebrate American Thanksgiving, are expecting out-of-town guests and need something to feed them besides the day-of bird, salsa meatloaf is one idea, as it works at any temperature, can be seved in sandwiches or plated, and provided you use gluten-free breadcrumbs, can feed just about anyone.

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You’re wondering about the cilantro. It’s artfully concealing the crack where the IK checked doneness. To paraphrase Julia Child, a little parsley, or, in this case, cilantro, fixes everything. (2021: those were the days.)

Salsa Meatloaf with Tequila Canned Beans

Yield: 1 two-pound meatloaf, feeding 4-6 people, or two happy eaters for dinner with leftovers

Prep time: about 30 minutes to chop and sauté vegetables; 1 hour baking time

No special equipment or unusual ingredients necessary

Adapted from Jacqueline McMahan’s Hispanic American Meatloaf recipe in the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook, Volume I

Please see notes for variations on ingredients.

For the meatloaf:

2 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced. Use every part you can.

1/4 of a large carrot, peeled and finely diced

1 small red pepper, seeded and finely diced (I had about 1/2 cup)

a few slices of serrano pepper, if you like a spicy meatloaf

1-3 large garlic cloves (to taste), peeled and minced

3/4 cup minced parsley

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons fine sea or kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons New Mexico chile or other mild ground red pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

3/4 cup fresh salsa or your favorite store-bought salsa (recipe for fresh salsa below)

2 eggs

I pound ground pork, organic if possible, with some fat

1 pound ground beef

3/4 cup dried bread crumbs (I used panko)

For the salsa:

See Rick Bayless’s Tomatillo Braised Pork Loin to use tomatillo sauce. I had some leftover, and added two fresh tomatillos and a few slices of serrano pepper.

For fresh salsa:

2-3 small Roma tomatoes, halved and seeded or

4 whole canned Roma tomatoes, drained

juice of l lime

1 scallion, trimmed and thinly sliced

chopped cilantro, to taste (optional)

1 small garlic clove, peeled and minced (optional)

salt

For the Tequila Canned Beans:

One or two 14 ounce cans of unsalted organic black beans (depending on how many you are feeding)

1 tablespoon olive oil

juice of 1-2 limes (to taste)

1-2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced (to taste)

1 shot of the best tequila you’re willing to cook with

ample salt

optional additions:

tomatillos, husked, washed, and quartered

chile pepper or other hot pepper

minced scallion

cumin

coriander

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

If you are making fresh salsa, begin here:

Halve fresh tomatoes, place on a baking sheet, and broil, skin side up, until lightly blistered. When cool enough to handle, either dice or process briefly in food processor or blender. Mix with other salsa ingredients. Taste for salt. You will need 3/4 of a cup for the meatloaf recipe. If any is leftover, either serve it with the meal, save for another time, or shamelessly eat it yourself. After all, you’re doing all the work.

Now the meatloaf:

Set your largest bowl and a low-sided roaster or gratin dish on the counter. Line the baking dish with foil.

Trim and mince the scallions. Peel and dice the carrot and red pepper. Prep the hot pepper, if using. Take care when handling hot peppers, washing your hands with hot soapy water before touching other areas of you anatomy, especially your contact-lens -covered eyes. Hot peppers vary in strength, so I always take a careful taste to judge how much I should add to a dish. Here, just two small slices of serrano were enough.

Peel and mince the garlic. Finely chop the parsley.

Pour a generous amount olive oil into 12-14 inch sauté pan: 1-2 tablespoons, depending on pan size. Bottom of pan should be generously covered. Heat to medium, then add the scallions, carrot, peppers, garlic, and parsley. Cook gently, allowing ingredients to soften rather than brown. Tip the pan’s contents into your large bowl.

Add salt, pepper, New Mexico chile or other red pepper, and cumin, salsa, and eggs to bowl. Blend with a large fork. Add the ground beef, ground pork, bread crumbs, and mix. I find my clean hands are best here. The mixture will seem a watery mess. Don’t panic. Do your best to form a long, low meatloaf. This permits even cooking.

Set the meatloaf in the baking dish and slide into the oven. Bake 55-60 minutes. Meatloaf is cooked through when your subtle check with a dinner knife reveals an interior that is completely cooked through. Rare is never a desirable trait in a meatloaf.

While the meatloaf cooks, make the beans:

Drain beans in a strainer. Rinse gloop off with warm water.

Place a 10-12 inch sauté pan over medium heat. Film with olive oil. Add the garlic and scallion, if using. Allow to cook briefly. Add the beans, salt, pepper, other spices, if using, lime juice, optional tomatillos, and tequila. While beans are ready when heated through, they only benefit from sitting over the lowest possible heat for at least 45 minutes, if you have the time. If pan begins looking dry, add liquid: water is fine. Chicken broth is lovely. If you have come into an inheritance or have a still, add more tequila. Is the meatloaf out of the oven? grab some of the delicious fat that’s pooling in the dish and add it to your beans.

Serve Salsa Meatloaf with tortillas, sour cream, your tequila beans, and additional lime. More salsa, if you haven’t eaten it up. Finely shredded cabbage or iceberg lettuce–you want crunch–would be wonderful. Fresh avocado would be nice,too. Thinly sliced white onion, quickly pickled in white wine or plain old vinegar makes another tasty addition.

Notes:

Scallions may be replaced with a peeled and minced medium yellow onion.

You can increase or decrease amounts of red pepper to taste. If you like green pepper, feel free to add 1/2 cup, finely diced. You can add hot pepper or eliminate it. I live with a person who isn’t fond of red or green peppers, so must tread lightly. Worse, he’s allergic to jalapeños, so I always use serranos instead. Feel free to use jalapeños if you like a spicier meatloaf.

The original recipe was written at the height of fat-free mania, and called for fat free ground turkey and lean ground beef. Use whatever ground meats you prefer. This said, I’ve found ground chicken throws off a lot of water–if you use it, you may need to increase the amount of breadcrumbs to one cup.

Meatloaf keeps refrigerated, well-wrapped, up to 3 days or frozen, well-wrapped, up to three months, though the salsa will lose some flavor.

Beans will keep, refrigerated, up to 3 days. Freezing would turn them to mush.

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