Mine is tuna casserole and other casseroles such as cheeseburger casserole. I like making casseroles because you can turn almost anything into a casserole.
It depends a lot on weather and mood, but probably barreado. It’s a pulled beef-like dish, where the meat is cooked until falling apart into strings, and the resulting broth is extremely flavourful.
The one I prepare is not the original, though, made in clayware with the lid glued with flour; I simply use a pressure cooker. Faster and safer this way.
It’s one of the typical dishes of my homeland but the reasons I like making it at home are more like: I like the taste, it scales well, it freezes well, it combos well with any carb I might want to eat, and it works well with cheaper beef cuts. For example the trad way to serve it is with yucca meal, but I do it often with instant polenta or plain bread.
Another “dish” I like preparing is air-fried chicken thighs. Let them marinate overnight, plop them into the air fryer, let’em cook, flip, let’em cook, done. All that fat from the thighs goes down the drain, but not before actually frying the skin, that gets crispy and delicious. Plus it’s so braindead simple even a kid could do it.
Sounds really good. This one I have to look up and try.
Just in case I’ll share the recipe I follow:
- 100g bacon, diced small
- 1kg beef, cut into large chunks [see notes for the cuts]
- some veg oil, if necessary
- 1 medium onion, peeled, diced
- 3 Roma tomatoes, peeled, diced
- 2~4 cloves of garlic, peeled, diced
- 4 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- beef broth or water
- cumin, salt, black pepper, red pepper, bay leaf to taste
- optional: parsley, for garnish
- In the open pressure cooker, over medium-low heat, render the bacon fat. Reserve the meaty bits, keep the fat in the pot.
- Turn fire up, and use it to brown the beef. Don’t worry about cooking it inside, you only want to brown it in the outside.
- Add onion, tomato, garlic, vinegar, enough broth/water to cover everything, and seasoning. Return the bacon bits to the pressure cooker. Close the lid, let it cook for 1h30min or so.
- By then the vegs probably dissolved. Now use two forks to shred the meat, and add more water/broth if necessary (use your judgement). Close the pressure cooker again, let it cook for some additional 15min.
- If garnishing with parsley, do it. Either way, enjoy it. It’s traditionally served with yucca meal and sliced bananas.
It should end looking like this (check top left):
It isn’t a “pretty” dish, but it’s tasty.Notes:
- This dish isn’t picky on beef cuts. I typically use the equivalent of brisket (peito) or shin (músculo), but something like chuck (acém) works fine too.
- The step to brown the beef isn’t traditional, but I strongly recommend it, IMO it tastes better.
- In the early 18th century, this recipe was in an ad hoc pressure cooker: a clayware pot with the lid glued by a mix of yucca meal and wheat flour, so the vapour doesn’t escape. It’s hilariously unsafe and I can’t recommend it. If possible, use a plain pressure cooker; but something like a slow cooker would work fine too, just adjust the times.
- For freezing I recommend to split the dish into individual portions first.
- In case you’re used to prepare bœuf bourguignon and/or goulasch, keep in mind you can mix concepts and ingredients of all three; I do it often. Paprika and mushrooms for example go really well in it. However in case you decide to use wine like in bœuf bourguignon, don’t add vinegar, and I’d recommend to not add cumin (cumin in wine sauces tends to taste weird IMO).
My own custom mix. I always eat it for breakfast and when i don’t have to cook for others. I don’t know what it’s called. My wife refers to it as disgusting fuel.
100g of Quick oats, 200g of yogurt, 30g of protein powder.
Easy to make, easy to eat, decent macro distribution. Consistency and taste can be very easily altered with different ratios or different yoghurt or protein powder.
Cool. I might try that.
I’m a simple man. Steak and salad with balsamic and bread.
Pasta Al Forno is nice. Minced meat, (canned) tomatoes, pasta, grate an entire cheese on top, then let do the oven do the work, chill for half an hour and there’s enough to eat for 2 and a half days. I think it has quite a nice effort/tastiness ratio.
I like eating tuna noodle casserole, but I don’t make it. Hmm.
I guess applesauce.
It’s easy (especially if you just core the apples and leave the skin in for texture, the way I do). Core apples, put apples in slow cooker, leave alone for a long time, come back, stir up and add spices.
It’s hard to get comparable results from a store. Applesauce from a store tends to be thin and lack texture, IME.
I really like it.
And it’s nice to eat warm, fresh out of the slow cooker, whereas normally I don’t heat store-bought applesauce.
EDIT:
I like making casseroles because you can turn almost anything into a casserole.
My favorite nostalgia casserole is sombrero pie, from some Betty Crocker cookbook:
https://dinnerisserved1972.com/2020/09/03/sombrero-pie/
Think sorta beanless chili con carne topped with a cornmeal crust.
I tend to favor having more spiciness in it than it has stock.
That pieathalon link is something else! Cheers Tal, will dig through more of it later. And yeah, chilli con carne with a big tortilla on top sounds like a winner.
My “classic pie that went horribly wrong”, and my mates still take the piss out of me now for how bad it was, was an attempt at “fidget pie”. How bad can a pork-and-apple pie be? It can be a soggy undercooked bowl of slop, that’s how.
Sounds yummy.
Tater tot casserole fucking rules.
Pasta cacio e pepe.
Because restaurant pasta is all overcooked shit, regardless of price or Michelin stars.
Rice and beans. Fast. Easy. Cheap. Throw in whatever random spices and seasonings speak to me. Done. Really. Go crazy with what you put in it. Mustard. Yogurt. Hot sauce. No one’s going to know.
Anything grilled.
Grilled anything, it’s easy, flavorful, and there’s less cleanup.
