Apr 27

Cookbook 72: Margaret Fulton’s Book of Casseroles

This is one of my favourite go to recipe books when the weather is cold and I feel like filling my stomach up with a good and tasty casserole.  As Easter was scheduled to be cool and it was in late April this year, I thought I’d make three separate casseroles from this book over that long weekend and see how they held up. I’ve made two of these casseroles before, one of which is a favourite of mine and I make it when I have time and the ingredients handy (and the weather is suitable).

So Margaret Fulton’s Book of Casseroles is old, published in 1989, and I would have picked up my copy of it in the early 1990s.  I do recommend it, as the range of casseroles is quite broad, and the instructions are pretty good, and the recipes are tasty.  My one minor gripe is that the recipes do not indicate the size of casserole dish would be good for each recipe, and that each recipe has put the casserole dish in an preheated oven, without having told you to preheat the oven earlier.  However, these are relatively minor issues and overall I give this 4 out of 5 stars.

Gingered Beef

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • salt and pepper
  • 1kg lean stewing beef, cut into 2.5cm cubes
  • 3 bacon rashers, derinded and diced
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 275g tomatoes, skinned and chopped
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1 1/4 cups beef stock
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • chopped parsley to garnish

Method:

  1. Mix together the flour, ginger and a little salt and pepper, then use to coat the beef cubes.  Fry the bacon in a frying pan until it is crisp and has rendered most of its fat.  Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and discard.
  2. Add the beef to the bacon fat in the pan and fry until browned on all sides.  Transfer to a casserole.
  3. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and fry until softened.  Stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste, beef stock, soy sauce and salt and pepper to taste.  Pour into the casserole, cover and cook in a preheated moderate oven, 180C for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until the beef is tender.  Garnish with chopped parsley.

Notes on this recipe:

  • The soy sauce gives this casserole the lovely appearance of richness without making you feel that you ate food that you’re going to regret later.  It looks good, tastes amazing, but doesn’t make you feel sick afterward.  This is a good thing.
  • You could entirely skip the bacon in this recipe and just use oil to cook the meat, cooking the bacon and then discarding it is criminal according to Scott.  His suggestion is to just leave the bacon in.
  • To tell the truth, you couldn’t taste the bacon fat or the ginger individually in the recipe, it all combined to one delicious whole.

Lamb Ratatouille

Ingredients:

  • 1 large eggplant, halved lengthways and sliced
  • salt and pepper
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil (approximately)
  • 1 kg boned shoulder of lamb, cubed
  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 750g zucchini, sliced
  • 1/2 red and 1/2 green capsicum, cored, seeded and sliced
  • 1 x 400g can tomatoes
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil

Method:

  1. Sprinkle the eggplant slices with salt and leave to drain for 30 minutes.  Rinse and pat dry (you can skip this step entirely, unless you’re using particularly bitter eggplants).
  2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a flameproof casserole.  Add the lamb cubes and brown on all sides, then remove and set aside.
  3. Add the onion to the casserole, with the remaining oil if necessary, and fry until softened.  Add the eggplant, zucchini, red and green capsicum, tomatoes with their juice, basil and salt and pepper to taste.
  4. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
  5. Stir the lamb cubes into the vegetable mixture.  Re-cover and cook in a preheated moderate oven, 180C, for 1 hour or until tender.

Notes on this recipe:

  • This recipe really makes a lot of food, it could have easily served 8 people, not the 4 – 6 listed on the recipe.
  • This was the least interesting of all the casseroles that we cooked, and yet it was still a great casserole.  It is a lot more like a stew because the sauce was very runny, but there is no flour involved, so hardly surprising.

Smothered Chicken

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup of plain flour
  • salt and pepper
  • 8 chicken pieces
  • 60g butter
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 small carrot, diced
  • 1 small celery stick, finely chopped
  • 2 cups chicken stock
  • 5 tablespoons of cream

Method:

  1. Season half the flour and use to coat the chicken pieces.  Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the chicken pieces.  Brown on all sides, then transfer to a casserole.
  2. Add the onion, carrot and celery to the fat and fry until the onion is softened.  Sprinkle over the remaining flour and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes.  Gradually stir in the stock and bring to the boil.  Simmer, stirring, until thickened, then pour over the chicken.
  3. Cover and cook in a preheated moderate oven, 180C, for about 1 hour or until the chicken is tender.
  4. Transfer the chicken pieces to a warmed serving dish and keep hot. Stir the cream into the sauce in the casserole and adjust the seasoning.  Pour over the chicken.

Notes on this recipe:

  • This recipe is creamy and delicious without being overly rich.  I always double the carrot and celery in this recipe so there are more vegetables.
  • The left over sauce (because there is usually left over sauce), works really well as a pasta sauce for another meal.
  • Chicken thigh cutlets work the best for this dish I’ve discovered, but really any chicken pieces will work ok.

 

TIP For flouring meat, put the flour into a large freezer bag and season as appropriate.  Add the meat to the bag, twist the top tight, but leave a pocket of air in the bag.  Shake vigorously so the meat is completely covered in flour.  Enjoy.