Cooked: November 16, 2023
I’m between two posts about novels from J. Ryan Stradal – who writes about the midwest – the last one being on Minnesota (The Lager Queen off Minnesota). This was the perfect spot for a post on Minnesota Hot Dish. Spoiler alert, the novels are better than the dish.
While I know the upper midwest has a reputation for casseroles I had never heard of this dish until this past winter. I can hear my friends Herb and Dianne McD gasping at this point. “WHAT? Howard actually went out of his way to cook a casserole? Is this a sign of the end times?” I don’t remember how I came to be aware of this recipe, but when I heard or read the dish name I was all in. I was intrigued because it uses tater tops as the crisply toppings. The first recipe I found for it was watching the America’s Test Kitchen episode on YouTube. where I discovered it also goes under the name “Tater Tot Hot Dish”.
You can find the original recipe on the ATK website. (Warning: it used to be that ATK recipes were free though you had to create an account). Now you’ll get one free look, but have to subscribe for more access. I’m so irritated with that group – which includes Cook’s Country and Cook’s Illustrated. I actually hand wrote the recipe from the YouTube video linked in the paragraph above. Or you can go to the WTTW website for the very similar, if not identical recipe from Cook’s Country. Or if you are fed up with the ATK group, Serious Eats has this recipe.
This is a no frills dish that we thought would be perfect for our weekly dinner with our grandsons. Notice how I wrote “grandsons” and not “grandkids” as I usually do/did? That’s because we now have a new baby granddaughter whose parents are my older son and daughter-in-law.
Anyway, back to the recipe. Here is the lineup – minus some flour I think.
Chop, slice, mince, press, measure…
Onions, meat, mushrooms, herbs and spices go into Ol’ Blue
Cook it all down for a while.
Add in flour and milk to make a gravy.
Doesn’t look very casserole-like does it? We’ll get there. Transfer the meat mixture into a pre-greased casserole dish.
Add thawed peas and carrots
A casserole isn’t a casserole without a crunch topping. Tater tots!
Bake in a hot – 450° – degree oven until it all bubbles
Dinner is served: Minnesota [AKA Tater Tot] Hot Dish
Our grandsons liked this. Jurgen actually said “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten over he…” *Stops, Looks, Points to a piece* “Is this .. is this a MUSHROOM?”. Dang! Busted! I thought the bits were too small to be identified. His ranking went down from “Best Ever” to “Okay”. I’ll take it. I think Cornelius – our picky eater – liked it enough to eat. Which is good enough.
This is a very plain dish without a lot of flavor layers. But it’s good at what it does. Leftovers are a challenge. In the fridge the tots start to meld into the casserole and get mushy. We had our friend John over for dinner when Karen was gone and served this. I took the tots off the casserole before reheating it, and reheated the tots separately in the air fryer.
It’s hard to rate this. If you are serving dinner for a group who like plain food this is fine. Or it could serve for a pot luck supper. We had an interim minister one time who bristled at the term “pot luck dinner”. He’d say “It’s a covered dish dinner; Presbyterians don’t believe in luck.”
It’s easy to prepare so we may make it for the kids again, but it’s not special/flavorful enough for a dinner party.
Rating: ★★. If I gave out half stars this would definitely be 2½ stars.
