After a lifetime of ambivalence toward the casserole, I have reconsidered my position.
This holiday season has convinced me that when a surfeit of obligations comes up against a paucity of time, it’s not such a bad thing to have a lamb-and-eggplant shepherd’s pie in the freezer for relatives or unexpected guests.
To many, the all-American casserole evokes heartwarming comfort-food memories. But that is not my experience. My mother turned her nose up at the mention of the word; having made nothing but casseroles as a newlywed, she could not stand the thought of them once she “learned how to cook.” ” ‘Casserole,’ ” she liked to say, “is the French word for ‘glop.’ “
Despite our mother’s interdiction, my siblings and I, children of divorce, were regularly exposed to casseroles during trips to visit our father in Alabama.
Our stepmother’s repertoire included perennially popular concoctions: asparagus-pea, broccoli-rice, green-bean- mushroom. Those offerings did not necessarily disprove our mother’s assessment of casseroles, thanks mostly to the fact that their main ingredients, condensed soup and canned or frozen vegetables, shared exactly the same soft, unappetizing texture.
But along with the abundance of sodium that some of those ingredients contained, other taste-bud triggers made the casseroles hard to resist: fat of some sort; gooey or processed cheeses; sour cream; crunchy toppings such as crushed cornflakes, buttered bread crumbs and frizzled onions; and sometimes the ultimate bet-hedger: bacon.
The truth was, even if the tinny chemical taste of cream-of- whatever soups or the sad, muddy nullity of canned asparagus or frozen broccoli made me want to pass up those dishes, those other inducements enticed me like sirens.
I would eagerly help myself to seconds of hash brown casserole (frozen hash browns, cream of chicken soup, cheddar cheese, sour cream, cornflakes) or Betty Jean’s Casserole, a family favorite made with browned ground beef, macaroni, celery, onions, a bottle of ketchup and half a loaf of Velveeta melted on top. I guess I didn’t stand a chance against the vast conglomerate conspiracy to coat the world in high-fructose corn syrup and top it with bubbly, Day-Glo-orange “cheez” food.
When I cooked professionally, my relationship with such ghastly amalgamations became more complicated. I accepted them as a guest but rejected them as a chef.
Of course, out of convenience, I just decided to put foods I liked in a separate category. Let’s face it: Lasagna is a casserole. The pleasure we derive from it is directly proportional to the amount of cheese it contains.
And so, as a supposed entertaining expert who has been caught off guard more than once in recent weeks (no time to go to the grocery store; friends coming over in an hour; fridge basically empty), I set out to devise some one-dish wonders of my own, minus the cans of soup and other processed ingredients.
For the basic formula, I broke out the components of most one-dish meals (protein, vegetable, starch) and filled in the blanks. I started with a personal favorite, shepherd’s pie, and gave it a Mediterranean tweak, adding eggplant to the ground-lamb-and-tomato base and topping a layer of mashed Yukon Gold and sweet potatoes with feta cheese and a drizzle of olive oil. The dish freezes nicely, cooked or uncooked.
For Moroccan chicken pearl couscous casserole, I matched the ingredients of a vegetable tagine (sweet potatoes, zucchini, chickpeas, dried apricots, raisins, red onions) with spice-coated chicken breasts, tomatoes and chicken broth. I combined them in an enameled Dutch oven with uncooked pearl couscous.
The liquids cooked the pasta along with everything else, saving a step.
For a meatless Monday dish — assembled on Sunday — I highlighted butternut squash, shiitake mushrooms and earthy kale with Asian accents: coconut milk, lemon grass, galangal, green chile peppers, ginger, tamari, sesame seeds and chili paste with garlic. When the casserole bakes, the kale leaves on top crisp up to add a nice crunch.
Stuffed cabbage rolls — mine made with ground turkey, basmati rice, crushed tomatoes and a hint of Thai red curry paste — always are crowd pleasers, especially in my house; minus the Thai element, they were a staple in my partner’s Polish household when he was growing up. Stacked on a mound of mashed potatoes and topped with dollops of creme fraiche, these two-pot cabbage rolls make a perfect winter dish.
I never once ate tuna noodle casserole as a kid, but apparently that was not the case with my partner. When he came home the day I tested my version of the American classic, his eyes lit up.
“Is that tuna noodle casserole?” Michael gushed with the kind of enthusiasm he never demonstrated for my elaborate salmon experiments.
He wolfed down a square of it, made as a lasagna with peas, mushrooms, scallions, dill and a zesty bechamel sauce, and then asked for seconds.
Good thing there are two more batches of it in the freezer, one made with salmon.
Along the way in my casserole adventure, I learned these tips:
• If you plan to freeze a casserole straight away, line the dish with aluminum foil before filling it. Once the contents have frozen, you can remove the block from the pan, wrap it well and store it without a dish.
• Defrost frozen casseroles in the refrigerator overnight, or pop them into the oven frozen, but double the cooking time.
• To know whether a casserole is hot enough in the middle, insert a knife in the center, then withdraw it and see if it is hot to the touch; or cook the casserole to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.
There is something so liberating about having hearty, prepped dishes in the freezer that I feel almost compelled to invite people over at the last minute just because I can.
Proud of myself for having created casseroles that are flavorful and free of processed foods yet not overly laden with cheese, fat and sugar, I did what recent converts do: I tried to convert someone else.
I told my mother I was writing an article on the virtue of casseroles, but before I even got the word out, her nose and mouth crinkled in a pruny grimace.
“You know what the word ‘casserole’ means, don’t you?” she barked.
“Yes,” I responded. “It’s French for ‘don’t even bother.’ “
