You see, traditional Czech cuisine is all about guilty pleasures. You know you should not do it. You know it’s bad for you. But once in a while, when no-one’s looking, you just need a bit of sweet satisfaction from a pice of juicy pork belly or a crunchy schnitzel. It’s just so damn delicious, and nobody can stay so strong for long.

And the same goes for the meatloaf at the Nase Mase butcher shop. Meatloaf?!? Not the first you would order when you travel, but this particular meatloaf, juicy and tender and moist and beautiful, is - believe it or not - one of the most popular meals of our Prague food tour. Yes, we later visit other restaurants for fancy sit-down meals where you can inspect chefs’ tweezer work, but when we ask at the end what was our guests’ favorite meal, the meatloaf always gets a dreamy mention. It’s just that good. Heck, when Nase maso opened, the butchers held a competition for the best meatloaf recipe: each butcher would prepare their own, and the winning recipe would become the recipe of the butcher shop. Jirka Michal’s grandma’s recipe was the clear winner.

“Good meatloaf should have the fat content of good cheese.” Yes, fat content is everything for this meatloaf. Mr Ksana, the master butcher of the Nase maso butcher shop, says that you should not be shy with fatty pork when you prepare meatloaf. Unlike in many English-speaking countries, where meatloaf is a mostly beef-only affair (our Canadian guests tell us Canadian meatloaf is served to kids as punishment), Czech meatloaf relies on pork. The result is a wonderfully tender meatloaf that just melts in your mouth. Serve with bread, mustard and dill pickles.

Nase maso's Meatloaf Recipe

Ingredients:

240 g marbled aged beef neck, minced
500 g pork belly (without bone and skin) from the Czech Prestice pig, minced (Berkshire pig will do just fine)
700g pork shoulder from Prestice pig, minced (again, look for a fatty pig like Berkshire)
100 g white roll, bread or baguette, diced
150 ml milk
2 eggs
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
salt, black pepper, caraway seeds and marjoram

Heat oven to 180 °C. Put white bread in a bowl with milk and leave to soak.
Mix all the meats with salt, pepper, caraway and marjoram. Add garlic and onion, soaked bread and beaten eggs and mix well.
Shape 2 loafs, put them in a pan, smooth with wet hands, baste with a bit water and roast in the oven for 1 hour until the meatloaf is brown and well done.

Bon appetit!