Polpettone

Polpettone is kinda, sorta, but not really, "Italian Meatloaf".  It's actually a pretty ancient northern-Italian dish, dating back to the 1500s and possibly earlier. Regardless, it's pretty awesome comfort food, and once you figure out the base you can have a blast changing the filling, ingredients, spicing, and whatnot.

The recipe below comes from a friend of mine from Puglia. OK, technically, it's her mom's, which only makes it even better, right?

(Incidentally, if you want to learn - or improve - your Italian, you can do far, far worse than working with her. The site is called LearnAmo, she's incredibly good at it, and the videos are endlessly entertaining.)

Anyhow, enough of the plug - recipe below.

Ingredients

• 
  1.5 lbs ground beef (I prefer the good stuff, not the lean kind. But, whatev)
• 2 eggs
• 1 medium boiled potato, mushed w/ a fork
• 1 small handful of chopped parsley
• 1 large slice of bread, left to soak in water for 5 minutes
• 1 clove of garlic, diced mighty fine
• 1 cup of Cheese (Low water content. shredded mozzarella works best)
• Prosciutto (or lardo). Quantity varies based on taste...
• Salt, and plenty of pepper

Mix all the above ingredients - except the cheese and the prosciutto/lardo - in a bowl.  (And yes, don't forget to squeeze all the water out of the bread!).  Mind you, when I say "mix", I mean, by hand. Mix it well, to the point that the whole thing is a homogenous pink blob. 

Next, spread it on a long strip of parchment paper so that it is a 1" thick rectangle.

Put the cheese down the middle lengthwise, leaving a bit of a gap at the ends.

Layer the prosciutto (or lardo) on top of the cheese.  
Note that the quantity of cheese/prosciutto/lardo is entirely based on what you want. Me, I prefer ∞-cheese, but then again, I am addicted to cheese. And lardo.

Roll up each of the long sides of the rectangle, so that the cheese/prosciutto/lardo is covered, and pinch the edges closed. Do, also, fold up the ends.  The whole point here is to prevent the melty cheese from escaping...

Now for the fun part -

/via tavolartegusto

roll up the parchment paper, and twist the ends firmly closed, as shown in the picture.

Then (and this is key), roll all this up again in another piece of parchment paper, and twist the ends firmly close again. This "double-bagging" is key - it prevents the random tear/split from ruining the whole thing!

Put the whole thing in the fridge for about an hour or so, so that it firms up a bit.

In the meantime, heat the oven up to 350°F.  

Place the - still wrapped - meat on a baking sheet, and cook in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes.

Remove the outer layer of parchment paper, and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Now, remove the inner layer of parchment paper (gently, so as to not break the polpettone).  Note that if you don't do this, you will basically ending up testing your smoke alarm 🙄.

Brush olive oil generously over the top and sides of the polpettone.

Set the oven on broil, (so that the flames/whatever are from above!), and broil the polpettone for a further 10 minutes. 

Remove from the oven, and let it sit for 10 minutes.  

Slice - be mindful of the cheese that oozes out from the inside - and eat with roast potatoes, or mashed potatoes, or asparagus, or country bread, or, well, whatever.  Doesn't matter. It'll work.

And yeah, don't forget the wine 😜