Salisbury Ground Pork Meatloaf With Apple and Sage

Why do so many people want to put apples and raisins and stuff like that with pork? I dont get the sweet with savory thing, but Germans, Africans, Indians and Thai do it a lot. This is a good basic recipe but the salt does look a little heavy and white pepper is really strong...my wife called it a "barnyard flavor". I would suggest going with 1 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp white pepper. Something folks forget to do is taste a mixture like this. Take a pinch and fry it in a small skillet and taste it. Then if it needs more salt, I would suggest using some soy sauce, Worcestershire or even some granulated bouillon because those bring with it a bunch of flavor. To the 1/4 tsp white pepper, I would add a teaspoon coarse black pepper and a good pinch of red pepper flakes for some spice. It's interesting that she doesn't have us saute the onions, I think I'm going to try that...putting raw onion in the meat mixture. Maybe some spicy diced fresh peppers too...and garlic...fresh coarse chopped garlic. Using them raw would add some moisture and the flavor could be more intense. She is right on the amount of fresh sage. Sage is very mild when straight off the plant so you need a lot. We just added ages to our seasonal herb grows, its really special when you dry it yourself, it maintains a bit of moisture and is very resinous...unlike some of the store-bought dry sage. Another thing I have started doing is making meatloaf in to smaller clumps and baking them separated on a sheet pan or even a wire rack over a pan. My favorite parts are the browned parts of the meatloaf, when you bake them in serving sized clumps that allow the oven's air to circulate around them, you get a nice crust all around and they bake faster too. The author suggest a mustard cheese sauce but gives no recipe. This sounds like a great idea, I was wondering what kind of sauce or gravy would be good with an all pork meatloaf and this seems like it would work well, especially with a heavy dose of ground mustard in the sauce to make it sharp and spicy. That's the key to a traditional ketchup based sauce...lots of ground mustard.

I also felt like this had too much pepper, even after reading another review saying as much and subsequently cutting the pepper in half. A half tablespoon of pepper for a pound of pork is still a lot, especially white pepper! I also cut the salt in half, which seemed just right. We enjoyed the recipe otherwise, and I will continue to play with the white pepper until I get it right. I want to accent the flavor of the pork, apples, etc, with the pepper, not overwhelm them. Thanks for the recipe, I'll keep trying!

Too much pepper and salt for a pound of pork. I could see 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Also, 1.5 hours was too long as pork only needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 160'F.

The fresh sage was the key for me and we thaught it was yummy! I topped it with a little raspberry chipotle sauce (bottle), more sauce on the side, garlic mashed potatoes, and steamed vegies :-)

I made this as written using fresh sage. It was a tad bit salty for us but other than that a very nice meatloaf. I'll make it again with less salt. It was a nice change from ground beef. Thanks for sharing. Made for ZWT 6.