You've Been Making Meatloaf WRONG Your Whole Life — Try These 30 Appalachian Tricks

🔗 Grandma never wrote hers down, so I finally did. All 118 plus much more. Get em before they're gone: https://www.opalrowe.com Opal Rowe is eighty years old, and at every homecoming for fifty years somebody has followed her back to the kitchen to ask what she puts in her meatloaf. She always said crackers and an egg, and she left the rest out. In this one she counts down 30 old Appalachian tricks for making meatloaf right, from the black iron skillet to the grease can to the pan of water in the oven, and the first few are ones you can use on tonight's supper. All the while a crock bowl sits on her kitchen table with a plate laid over it, full of something pale and thick that has been there since breakfast. If your meatloaf ever came out dry or fell to crumbs under the knife, that bowl is why hers never did, and she finally lifts the plate and tells you what is in it. In this one, Opal covers: • Why a black iron skillet with room all around browns a loaf that a loaf pan leaves pale and wet • The five minutes that fix a dry meatloaf: wet the crackers before they ever touch the meat • A three-part topping stirred up in a teacup, and why it goes on only for the last fifteen minutes • The company loaf with something hid down the middle, the hard times loaf from the coal camps, and a muffin pan for cooking for one • What is in that crock bowl on her kitchen table, and the one thing her mama did every single time Tell Opal down in the comments where you are watching from, and who made the meatloaf at your house, a mama, a mawmaw, or an aunt, and what she put in hers. Was it crackers, or oats, or light bread, or something she never would say? Tell her if anybody in your family still mixes it by hand. Opal reads every last one. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Crock Bowl on Opal's Kitchen Table 2:04 A Sleeve of Soda Crackers, Not Bread Crumbs 2:55 Half the Meat Ought to Be Breakfast Sausage 3:46 Bake It in the Black Iron Skillet 4:36 A Cup of Cold Cooked Rice 5:30 Bacon Grease in a Hot Skillet 6:20 Lean Beef Is the Wrong Beef 7:11 Never Let It Set in Its Own Drippins 8:00 Cook the Onion Before It Goes In 8:47 Wet Your Crackers First 9:38 The Can of Milk on the Pantry Shelf 10:34 The Toppin Is Three Things, Not One 11:32 Toppin Goes On the Last Fifteen Minutes 12:58 A Handful of Rolled Oats 14:14 Grate Your Onion, Do Not Chop It 15:40 Cold Meat and Cold Hands 17:25 Boiled Eggs Down the Middle of the Loaf 19:03 Two Things From the Cabinet for a Flat Loaf 20:41 A Pan of Water in the Bottom of the Oven 22:15 Go by the Heat, Not the Clock 24:08 Do Not Cut It the Minute It Comes Out 26:02 Mix It Early and Let It Wait in the Cold 27:53 A Muffin Pan for One or Two at the Table 30:11 Fry the Cold Slices the Next Mornin 32:11 The Cold Meatloaf Sandwich 34:06 The Gravy Hidin in the Bottom of Your Pan 36:01 The Hard Times Loaf 37:58 The Loaf for More Than Your Own Table 40:09 Why a Mountain Meatloaf Tastes the Way It Does 42:08 The Bowl She Kept From You — Uncovered 44:13 Your Own Two Hands