Aspic Glazed Lamb Loaf – A Vintage Weight Watchers Recipe Test - Mid-Century Menu (2024)

So, a little bird over on Twitter informed me that this is National Jell-O Week. I had been planning on bringing you a feast of pizza excellence this week (it is pretty hilarious), but I put that one on hold for the love of gelatin. Also, I didn’t get anything made for Valentine’s Day. But since I have been showing you a lot of gelatin lately, I decided to break out one of the fun ones for this week.

And by “fun”, I of course mean “covered with slime” and “not even really containing actual Jell-O”.

Aspic. Glazed. Lamb. Loaf.

Yeah, I made it.

This recipe comes from the intrepid Mimi WW over at 1972: The Retro WW Experiment. She is also one of the very few Mid-Century food bloggers who out-crazies even me. Not only does she test vintage recipes, but her vintage recipes are vintage Weight Watchers recipes. I swear, some of the stuff she’s made shouldn’t even be considered food. I pride myself on being adventurous with food, but she has me beat on this one hands down. When you compare the two of us, it basically like saying I like to skydive, but Mimi likes to skydive without a parachute.

Just look at that thing. Ugh.

Mimi writes:

You asked for it. You got it.
More meat encased in gelatin. I thought this one was kinda fancy. Hope it makes the cut!

xoxo
Mimi

I cheated slightly on this one and used raw ground lamb in place of grinding cooked lamb chunks. I didn’t have any lamb chunks just laying around waiting to be ground, and I wasn’t about to cook some up just to grind them and then cook them again. I was already doing enough fiddly stuff by painting thin layers of gelatin one by one over the loaf.

So, this is what the lamb loaf looks like sans aspic coating. Pretty much like a pile of meatloaf.

And here it is after getting its aspic jacket on. This was about 6 layers of gelatin. I am thinking they must have put at least double that on the one in the photo. But honestly, I was done at 6 layers. That’s enough layers.

Also, I am starting to think that maybe the used a mold for the outside and they lied to me. Because when I painstakingly painted on layer after layer, most of it just slid straight off onto the plate.

Or maybe they cut it off the “glazing plate” and re-plated it when they were done so it didn’t look like their gelatin was hovering over a big pile of sneeze. I think the chicken boullion I used must have been pretty fatty to make the gelatin that cloudy.

Unfortunately, I didn’t leave myself much room to be clever with the veggies on the top, so I had to do some quick design work on the fly. I suppose it didn’t turn out too badly if you like the look of radishes covered with snot.

It improved upon cutting. The layer on the top doesn’t look as freaky. The strange red color was mesmerizing. And no, it is not raw, that would be the tomato purée.

“This is cold. Why is it cold?”

“It’s supposed to be served that way.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Here’s the picture.”

“Uhhhhhh…”

“It tastes like cold lamb loaf.”

“What does the aspic taste like?”

“Chicken.”

The Verdict: Cold

From the Tasting Notes:

Not bad. Had a strong celery flavor for some reason, but overall didn’t taste as bad as expected. Besides being cold, the aspic jacket was really unappetizing. Would have actually been sort of good if aspic was left off and meatloaf would have been served warm with the raw veggies on the side.

Thanks for the recipe, Mimi!