The best meatloaf ever.

Meatloaf is one of those abstract dishes that just begs for mucking around with. My own personal favorite is heavy on the fish sauce, fennel, and herbs, and is simply out of this world.

1 lb lean ground beef or turkey***
1 lb ground pork
1 fennel bulb
1 large onion, cut in half
3 cloves of garlic, minced
handful of fresh herbs, minced or 3 tbs dried herbs (anything will do,
though I'm partial to fresh italian parsley, sage, or thyme, and herbs
de provenance for dried)
1/3 cup good quality fish sauce (or to taste)
2 tbs Worcestershire or soy sauce
1-2 cups bread crumbs (or more, depending on the texture of the finished loaf)
2 eggs
salt to taste (at least a tsp or two)
pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350

Finely dice one half of the onion, and grate the other half using the large side of a box style grater. Remove the stems/fronds from the fennel bulb, and grate per the onion above. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands. 



Add bread crumbs as needed until mixture is just barely sticky. You shouldn't need much more than a cup.



Scrape in to a standard loaf pan and cover with ketchup (if desired).

Bake for 75 minutes.

You can pretty much use 2 lbs of whatever ground meat you want. I recommend pork and turkey or beef, but no reason you can't use lamb, veal, buffalo, elk, chicken, ostrich, or whatever. I say to taste for many of the ingredients because it's really up to you how flavorful / salty you want it. The more fish sauce and soy you use the less salt you need to add, but don't skimp on the seasoning.