Dick Kennedy photo
Polly's Meat Loaf
The meat loaf Polly Judd Rideout makes is so delicious and well known in Ashland, Kentucky, that when her daughter, country singer Naomi Judd, was growing up there she and her siblings could take Polly’s meat loaf sandwiches to school and trade for anything that the other kids had in their lunch sacks.
And when Polly started cooking on a towboat for an Ohio River barge line after her children were grown and gone away from home, it was this legendary meat loaf that solved the most vexing problem of her new career.
Barge crews, including the cook, work two-week stints on the river followed by two weeks off at home. The new schedule suited Polly fine except she worried who would take care of her yard and beautiful flowerbeds.
“No problem,” said a long-time friend of Polly’s son Mark. “All you have to do is make me a meatloaf every time you come home and I’ll be glad to be your yardman.” And that’s exactly what she did.
Here’s Polly’s recipe for meat loaf: good for paying yardmen, plumbers, and accountants but, most of all, delicious in sandwiches. This will make enough for four to eat heartily at dinner with plenty left over for big sandwiches the next day. At our house, we make the sandwiches on thin rye bread with plenty of mayonnaise, and serve bread ‘n’ butter pickles on the side.
Polly’s Meat Loaf
Enough for 4 and sandwiches the next day.
You Will Need
- 2 pounds lean ground beef
- 1⁄2 pound breakfast sausage
- 1 large egg
- 1 package Saltines, crushed (40 single crackers)
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 1 green pepper, minced
- 1⁄3 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 3⁄4 cup catsup
- 1⁄2 teaspoon ground pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
To Prepare
1) Because the proper way to mix this meat loaf is to squoosh it thoroughly with your hands, and that means getting your hands thoroughly covered in meat loaf, you’ll want to get everything set up to toss in before you start.
2) Turn the oven to 325 degrees and get out a shallow baking pan, about 9 by 12 inches.
3) Put the meat and egg in a large bowl. Crush the crackers finely. Polly puts them in a plastic bag and rolls them with a rolling pin to do this. Chop onions. Mince green pepper a bit finer than the onions. Pour 1⁄3 cup Worcestershire sauce in one measuring cup and pour 1⁄2 cup catsup in another. (You’ll use the other 1⁄4 cup later.) Now you’re ready.
4) Sprinkle pepper and salt over the meat and start squeezing and kneading it to mix well. When the sausage is pretty well distributed through the beef, sprinkle the saltines on and squeeze and knead them until well mixed. Dump onions and green peppers over this and mix and knead so they’re not all in a clump, then add catsup and Worcestershire and go to it with both hands again.
Polly says to mix and mix until the mixture has the same texture and ingredients throughout: “The way you do it is to squeeze that meat.“
The way you know it’s ready is that it will hold together somewhat like bread dough when you knead it. And you’ll want to knead it several times to make it stick together good and firmly.
5) Then slap it in the pan and shape it into an oblong loaf. Pat it and slap it into shape. firming it as you go.
6) When you’ve slapped to satisfaction and the loaf is firm and proud, put it into the oven and bake it at 325 degrees until it forms a crust—usually about 45 minutes. When it’s formed the crust, pull it out and slather the rest of the catsup down its crest. Put it back and bake it for about 45 minutes more. Let it cool just a bit before slicing. Meat loaf just about has to be served with mashed potatoes, and if you make up a double batch you’ll have plenty left over to make Cold Tater Cakes the next day with your meat loaf sandwiches.
Cold Tater Cakes
Little Jimmy Dickens sang “Take an Old Cold Tater and Wait” for so many years on the Grand Old Opry it became his trademark song. But someone should have told him that an old cold tater is there first step to some of the best food in a country kitchen.
My favorite old cold tater recipe is this one for leftover potato cakes just like my mother used to make. In fact, we liked these so much that she would usually mash extra potatoes for dinner one night so she’d have plenty left over to make potato cakes the next.
For every cup or so of mashed potatoes she had left, she mixed in about 1⁄4 cup of finely minced onion—either white or green. She added salt to taste in necessary, although often it wasn’t since her potatoes were already seasoned.
But she always added black pepper. Then she cracked an egg, beat it a little, and mixed it in with the potatoes.
She’d heat the skillet until it was very hot, and put in just enough oil or grease to make the bottom of the pan slick. The oil flavors the potatoes as well as cooking them, so if you want to use something like bacon grease, or put a few drops of sesame oil in safflower oil to flavor, you can.
Then she’d turn the heat down to medium and plop potato cakes into the pan a big spoonful at a time, flattening the tops a bit with the back of her spoon. A cup of potatoes makes about 4 cakes, about 3 inches in diameter.
Cook them until they’re brown on one side, then turn them over with a spatula, being very careful so you lift up all the crust and don’t leave any stuck on the pan. You cook them on the second side until that’s brown too, then serve them while they’re hot.
They’re yummy with catsup or sour cream.
Excerpted from Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes, and Honest Fried Chicken: The Heart and Soul of Southern Country Kitchens. Copyright © 1991 by Ronni Lundy.
Enjoy Ronni Lundy’s James Beard Award-winning book VICTUALS: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes. ronnilundy.com