This recipe and over 30 more of Joan’s favourites can be found in Cooking With Joan Crawford – only available from Blurb.
Are you having an Oscars party? Here in the UK it starts around midnight but I know quite a few people who will be pulling an all-nighter to watch the antics.
I might get someone to record it for me, then I will walk around all day on Tuesday with my fingers in my ears and my blinkers on. Like a bloke who doesn’t want to hear the football results until he gets home to Match of the Day. I will then go home, put on some lounging pyjamas and see which of today’s stars have the same level of glamour as Joan, Bette, Greta, Marlene and all my other idols…
Joan only won a single Oscar – outrageous – for her performance in Mildred Pierce (still my favourite Joan movie). She was “ill” on the night of the awards ceremony but bucked up a bit when she heard she had won…
So if you are planning to watch the Oscars, why not make a meatloaf this weekend in advance? As mentioned here before, I love meatloaf! Jayne Mansfield’s meatloaf recipe is currently Recipe of the Month and her recipe is aces!
But Jayne never won an Oscar so maybe Joan’s meatloaf is more event appropriate. Joan’s recipe for meatloaf is legendary! It appeared in her superb guide to living life JC style “My Way of Life”, in a book of film star favourites published by the Motion Picture Mothers organisation, and even in Vogue magazine. I think Joan was very proud of her meatloaf recipe and rightly so.
Here’s one I made earlier! Mmmmm.
Joan Crawford’s Meatloaf Recipe
900g / 2 lbs minced sirloin
450g / 1 lb pork sausage. minced / sausagemeat
450g / 1 lb minced veal
3 unbeaten eggs
1 large Bermuda onion, finely chopped
2 raw green bell peppers, finely chopped
3 tablespoons Lawry’s Seasoned Salt (divided use)
3 tablespoons Lea & Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce (divided use)
3 teaspoons A-1 Steak Sauce (divided use)
4 hard boiled eggs
Combine meats, unbeaten eggs, onion, peppers, 1 tablespoon Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, 1 tablespoon Lea & Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce and 1 teaspoon A-1 Steak Sauce. Mix thoroughly.
Shape mixture into oval loaf form in large shallow baking pan. Gently press hard boiled eggs into loaf.
Sprinkle remaining Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, Worcestershire and Steak Sauce on top of loaf, as a crust.
Pour 1 cup water into the base of the roasting pan.
Bake in pre-heated oven at 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C / Gas 4 for 30 min.
Turn oven down to 300 degrees F / 150 degrees C / Gas 2 and bake for another 30 min. Turn oven down to 250 degrees F / 130 degrees C / Gas 1/2 and bake for 45 min to one hour basting frequently with pan juice. (10 portions).
Like Joan? Want more of her favourite recipes? There are over 30 in my Cooking With Joan Crawford cookbook…
For UK based cooks, Lawry’s Seasoned Salt is a mixture of salt, sugar, paprika, turmeric, onion powder, garlic powder and cornstarch. You can buy it online if you want to be true to Joan’s recipe – British Corner Shop – or rustle up your own – Top Secret Recipes.
Or – I reckon something like the Schwartz brand “season-all” spice blend would do the trick.
A1 sauce is quite a runny steak sauce. Again you can buy online for authentic Joanie flavour. You could use your favourite barbecue sauce instead, or, at a pinch, some watered down HP? Open to experimentation chums. Have fun!
oh, and if you are in London, you can see me on tele on Monday night talking about gramophones… Inside Out, BBC1 from 7.30pm…
I’m going to see if I can watch you on the iPlayer! I’m catching up with the Oscars now–can’t look at anything on the internet. I only managed to watch two hours last night so almost all of the big awards have yet to be announced (in my timeline, anyway). It’s exactly like boys and their football–today is still Sunday night here, at least in Oscar terms. Enjoy watching–none are as glamorous now but there are a few nice frocks.
I love Mildred Pierce but Joan gave us so many great movies that I can’t just pick one.
Ah, do you know what? I didn’t see a single bit of it, and I haven’t even seen any of the frocks either. Just one photo of Redmayne on the front of a paper. The perils of being super buy this week. No time for gossip… Soon I’m going to nip over to your blog to see if you wrote about the outfits…
Hello,
Wow…so the cooked egg -in-the-meatloaf was a recipe from Joan Crawford and not an original recipe from the Bildner Cookbook….so interesting!
thank you
Marcia Feinberg
Thanks for stopping by, Marcia! I wasn’t familiar with the Binder Cookbook so I looked it up online, looks intriguing! Must stop buying cookbooks though! Jx