By Roz Antoun
Being that I am a person who doesn’t eat eggs, and won’t let an egg touch anything that I do eat, it never occurred to me to question the origin of my mom’s meatloaf with a hard boiled egg in the center. And now, 30 years since my mom cooked in her own kitchen, I can just picture those bombs created by her loving hands, smothered in ketchup, cooked to perfection right out of the oven. And the aroma, to die for. My portion, absent the egg, was half the size of the others, created for my other family members. No matter, it was just as I liked and my mouth watered in anticipation.
So, this morning, as I was thumbing through The Reporter, August 2026, I came across Rabbi Rachel Esserman’s article, “On the Jewish Food Scene,” titled “Jewish meatloaf,” and I set out to find my mom’s recipe for her meatloaf in my spare room closet.
“Yay, there it is, her recipe box,” I said to myself out loud and felt tears trickle down my cheeks, just as I had stored them away when she died. Carefully, I placed the box down on the bed, flipped open the top and behind the “Meat” label, written in her own distinct handwriting that I would recognize anywhere, was her recipe “Meat Loaf & Hard Boiled Eggs.” In the corner of the card she wrote “mine.”
So I ask you, what would be the point of this article if I didn’t share my mom’s recipe with you? No point, right?
So here I go:

2½ lbs. chopped meat 
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. dehydrated onion flakes 
Salt, garlic powder to taste
1½ cups tomato sauce 
3 Tbsp. ketchup
2 cups corn flakes 
6 hard boiled eggs

Chop meat and other ingredients in wooden bowl. (Did you catch that, the wooden chopping bowl? And with that the handheld chopping blade.) If too dry add a little water. Make 6 meat loaves, putting meat around individual hard boiled eggs in center. Put generous amounts of ketchup on each meat loaf. Put some water and dehydrated onions in bottom of baking dish. Bake at 350°F for 1½ hours or until brown.
When you are full and licking your lips, let me know if you want my mom’s recipe for gefilte fish. Zabar’s can’t compete with it.
Bon appétit!