motherfucking CASSEROLE SEASON

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/3E4coXj

It has finally begun to cool into autumn up here in the northeastern united states of whatever we are now, and in celebration I am going to start posting about CASSEROLES.

I fucking love casseroles, they are like. chef kiss the epitome of cuisine, if you ask me. You take a bunch of foods– ideally, everything you need to eat in a meal– and you do whatever you gotta do to ‘em and then you put them in a cute enamelware dish if you got one or like one of those stoneware ones with the patterns or, if you’re me, an unadorned Pyrex or a cast iron Dutch oven your mother found and literally mailed to you because why wouldn’t you mail a cast iron Dutch oven– or whatever you’ve got– and then you put them in the oven and then your whole house gets warm and steamy and then in a bit you get to eat like. Love on a plate, that’s what I think of when I get a casserole.

Some casseroles are not what you’d call haute cuisine. They are not the kind of thing that is trendy. They do not have, what you say, very much of seasonings in them. But they taste like food.

(I do not come from hot dish people and have never had hot dish, but in my heart I believe that such a thing must be wonderful. Just, every time I read a recipe I’m like uh. no. that sounds bad. But the concept of hot dish sounds great to me. So if that narrows it down– yeah no I’m from the Northeast, we don’t do hot dish. Someday I’ll experience it but I have not yet.)

So, without further ado, posting Number One: Classic Mac N Cheese.

This bears no resemblance to Kraft dinner besides the name. This is also an invaluable casserole because it is the sort of prototypical one, in my experience. From this model you can expand to include any ingredient you see fit to use.

SO, the basic recipe– this is just a sauce mornay over cooked pasta. (And sauce mornay is nothing more than a basic bechamel with cheese melted in, though purists would insist on specific cheeses. We are not purists, we merely remark on it because even quite fancy cooking can rest on these very simple bases.)

My recipe was hand-written for me by my mother, probably copied out of her late 70s edition of Fanny Farmer; I’ve made the Joy of Cooking version too, before I finally memorized it. My undiagnosed, untreated ADHD is so bad now I can’t follow a recipe anymore, but having memorized this means I can make any casserole that follows this basic technique. And so I present it to you, as a base from which to experiment.

THE VERY BASIC RECIPE:

Bring water to a boil and cook your favorite small pasta according to package directions. (Bowties, rotini, radiatore, small shells, wagon wheels, penne, ziti, elbows, etc. Long pasta like spaghetti or fettucine would structurally work but would be weird. Knock yourself out.) I think this recipe makes enough for half a pound, which would feed one person, or two without leftovers.

MEANWHILE. Make bechamel sauce:

2 Tbsp fat– butter, bacon grease, lard, vegetable oil– heated in a saucepan. Once melted, stir in 2 Tbsp flour. (White, whole wheat, gluten free, whatever.) (If your fat is unsalted you’re gonna wanna put salt somewhere in here. I don’t think it matters where. You can also put in cool things like nutmeg and bay leaves and whatever, either now or when you add the liquid.)

Whisk or stir together into a paste, heating over medium-low heat. Watch carefully. As soon as it begins to brown, add 1 c of milk or broth or a combination thereof. Whisk or stir briskly– a whisk or fork will help you break up lumps– until it is smooth. Cook, stirring, until it begins to thicken. This is the hardest part of this whole thing but practice makes perfect, just don’t walk away or burn it, it’ll boil over if you leave.

Once this has begun to thicken (pick up your stirring spoon and draw your finger through the sauce on the back of it; if it’s thick enough to cling so that your finger leaves a defined trail, it’s thick enough. If it’s so thin you can’t see the difference, you’re not there yet) dump in cheese. (If you had a bay leaf you can take it out now. Or not, and have it be a surprise for someone later.) I use about a cup of shredded cheddar. Munster works well, or colby or colbyjack or pepperjack or gouda. A square of fake American cheese food cheese melted in there makes it a creamier sauce less likely to break on reheating.

Melt the cheese into the sauce. (Optional, melt half into the sauce, reserve the other half.) Then decant half the pasta into the dish, scatter half the reserved cheese over it, then put the rest of the pasta in, and pour the sauce over the top. Spread the last of the reserved shredded cheese over the top of the casserole.

Optional crumb topping: Microwave 2-3 Tbsp butter and 2-3 Tbsp breadcrumbs, mix together into a uniform glop, spread over top of casserole in thin layer.

Bake casserole in a preheated 375-degree oven for like half an hour until bubbling and browned slightly on top. Eat.

VARIATIONS:

This is where it gets good. The thing I now do every time is that I’ll chop and brown an onion in the fat before I add the flour. Sometimes I’ll branch out and cook more aromatics– onion, then add a carrot or two, and put in some garlic just before I add the flour. And then along with the cooked pasta, I’ll add kale, or swiss chard, or beet greens. You can put as many vegetables in as you want, just sort of categorizing them by ones that will need quite a bit of cooking (aromatics, hard things like beets or turnips) and thus should be sauteed in the fat before the sauce is made, or ones that don’t need much cooking (braising greens, spinach, leaves, things like broccoli) and can just be thrown in with the noodles and cooked just as the casserole is heated through.

Meat too– I often cook bacon to render the fat, and then make the sauce atop that. Or I use ham, or bacon ends or pork jowls; those are the classics, and the sweetness of cured pork goes exceptionally well with the cheese. But you could branch out and try other meats– shredded cooked leftover poultry could be added at any point, for example.

EXPERT SECRET TIP AS A GIFT TO FUTURE YOU:

Something I’ve learned as well is that many casseroles can be made way way ahead, and frozen whole. This is an old meal-train-for-bereaved-family trick, but I use it for my lazy self. If I’m going to the hassle of making myself a whole casserole, now, I’ve got several recipes like this one where I’ll just make double, and then put half in my Pyrex straight into the oven, and then the other half either in my other Pyrex and saran-wrap the crap out of it, or if it’s not super layered, I’ll throw it in a tupperware thing and put that into the freezer.

You need several days to defrost something like that, though the microwave will help you speed that up, but there is no greater feeling of empowerment than facing down a busy week, looking at your schedule, and then pulling out a casserole from the freezer and sticking it in the fridge and saying “in three days, I will be able to come home, throw this in the oven, lie around for 45 minutes, and then feast.”

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t going to save your ass last-minute, casseroles aren’t good for that, but if you’ve got time for Sunday night existential dread about the coming week, that’s when you pull this out and stick it in the fridge as a gift for Wednesay you, who will have had a hard week.

(And I’m just saying, if you’re the type who works, say, retail, in a place where Christmas is a particular kind of hell– now is the time for you to put some of these into the freezer, as a sweet little future-gift. One now, for cold sad October you, and one to save the ass of exhausted December you.) (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Yay casseroles!

[redlightofdawn]

My spoonie ass owes it's continued existence to food you can keep in the freezer forever and then just stick in the oven for a bit and have a decent meal, it's a lifesaver