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.
