I'm going back to my roots for this one. No matter how many delicious Indiana pork tenderloins you feed me, there will always be a place in my heart and belly for hotdish. There's just something so endearing about a food that you dump a can of soup into. Comfort food at it's finest. This recipe is the perfect complement to the mushroom soup-based casserole from January. I, perhaps like many Minnesotans, am lucky to have casseroles from both sides of the family. This is a dish Mom grew up eating, and I made sure to call for some tips before making it.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups dry elbow macaroni
- 2/3 pound ground beef
- 1/2 medium onion
- 1 cup diced tomatoes with juice
- 1 can tomato soup
- 1/6 cup breadcrumbs
- Salt and pepper
- Vegetable oil
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Boil salted water in a pot. Cook the macaroni for 10 minutes in the boiling water.
Dice the onion. Heat some oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat. Fry the onions until soft, then add beef and season with salt and pepper. Remember, other seasonings would be so un-Minnesotan. Brown the beef. Add the diced tomatoes and tomato soup. Mix together and heat briefly.
In a casserole dish, combine the beef, onion, and tomato mixture with the macaroni. Mix thoroughly, then sprinkle breadcrumbs evenly on top. Bake for 30 minutes. If you desire a softer, gooier texture, bake longer. You may also want to broil for a few minutes to brown the breadcrumbs on top. Make sure to watch it so it doesn't get burned.
Oh hell yes. I'm in.
ReplyDeleteMinnesota Hotdish is being made by me tomorrow. I'm so excited it's got me talking in passive voice.
ReplyDeleteYou betcha it does.
DeleteUpdate: this turned out so much better than I could have possibly imagined. I guess sometimes simple really is better.
ReplyDeleteGenerations of satisfied Minnesotans could never have been wrong.
DeleteThe term hotdish is really a regional English word that refers to what many would call a casserole. It is a hotdish in Minnesota. The state leads the nation in per capita consumption of canned mushroom soup which is liberally used to sauce a cream-based hotdish. This one is tomato based but equally good. A baked pasta dish has a long history. In Italy, the term is "al forno", meaning maked in an oven. In Renaissance Italy, only the rich and the nobility owned ovens so "pasta al forno" was regarded as a luxury. An oven used so much more fuel that the cost was not feasible for an ordinary household. Bakeries had ovens but there the cost would be shared by many loaves of bread. Sebastian's grandma makes this particular hotdish with a lot of moisture before it goes into the oven so the result is very soft, moist nd gentle. Sebastian appropriately used the term "gooey". Soft dinner rolls and butter are very good with this. This and a green salad would make a nice meal. Kool-Aid anyone?
ReplyDelete