A Key Ingredient Lesson

Potato Casserole Supreme (Betty Crocker Cookbook)

My mother never made hash brown casserole. That’s not a fault. I learned late in life about it’s tasty cheesy, creamy, totally-easy-to-make-ness. That’s ok.

I still managed to mess it up. You’ll never guess how.

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup 1 container sour cream 1/2 cup milk 1/4 tsp pepper 1 package frozen shredded hash brown potatoes 8 medium green onions, sliced 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

1. Heat oven to 350F. Grease rectangular baking dish, 13x9x2 inches.

2. Mix soups, sour cream, milk and pepper in a very large bowl. Stir in potatoes and onions. Spoon into baking dish.

You can’ tell from this picture, but I had to substitute extra sour cream for the cream of chicken soup. Why? Because when I went to the grocery store after a long day of work, I grabbed a can of chicken broth instead of cream of chicken soup. Thank goodness I noticed before I poured.

3. Bake uncovered 30 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake uncovered 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown on top and bubbly around the edges.

In the end, this tasted kind of like cheating. I wasn’t really cooking so much as assembling and warming a series of ingredients already prepared for me. Call me a purist, but I don’t feel like this is cooking unless I cube the potato myself. So the overwhelming flavour here is the flavour of shirked responsibility. Bland shirked responsibility, since I couldn’t even be responsible for one of the most flavourful ingredients.

…a Honey?

Project: Company Potatoes, serves 8 (Kate Aitken’s Canadian Cook Book)

I have this cookbook that’s really more of a look into Canadian just-passed-history than an actual functional cookbook. Kate Aitken’s Canadian Cook Book includes some of the most laugh-worthy meat dishes (I’ve attempted to make a few that include 4 different kinds of meat), notes to new brides, and an entire chapter on slimming down in which people mainly subsist on liver, black coffee and a tablespoon of baking soda per day. It’s a head-scratcher, for sure.

8 cups raw potatoes, thinly sliced 2 tbsp dried bread crumbs, rolled 1/2 cup soft butter 3 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper 1/2 cup onion, thinly sliced

Pare and thinly slice the potatoes; let them stand in cold water for 20 minutes. Drain and dry well (use a clean bath towel).

BATH TOWEL?!?!?

Oil a 2-quart casserole; sprinkle the inside with the crumbs. Arrange the first layer of potatoes on the bottom of the dish with the edges overlapping; dot with butter, sprinkle with pepper and salt; cover with a thin layer of onion. Continue in this way till the entire dish is filled; there should be about 5 layers in all. Cover tightly; bake until the potatoes are tender. Place a large hot plate over the casserole and invert; the whole golden brown round will come out like a cake.

…if your cakes always look like someone dumped a pan of scalloped potatoes on a plate, then I’ve done it right here. Kate likes to end her recipes with helpful tips for garnishes. Don’t these sound appetizing?

Garnish with slices of jellied meat loaf and pickled peaches.

Then, as though she can barely contain her excitement at sharing this recipe:

This is a honey!

Indeed. If you like buttery, thinly sliced potatoes. Which I do.