This Casserole Has a Whole Cooking
Hello and welcome back to Will It Casserole? , a column in which I take your delicious concepts and reimagine them as delicious casserole creations. This week the concept is America and we managed to combine all the flavor of cooking into one hot dish.
The most difficult part of creating this multi-layered masterpiece was choosing which American icons would participate. Hot dogs and burgers were a must, but the side dishes were a little tricky. While there are few American things like burgers and fries, I found the fries to get weird when the casserole cooled down, and I wanted the dish to be free of weirdness. In the end, I settled on a cheeseburger and hot dog hybrid with fried onions, macaroni and cheese and baked beans, topped with butter, sesame seed crust and drizzled with burger sauce.
I don’t want to exaggerate, but it was one of the best things I have ever done. I was worried that the taste would be muddy and muted, but each ingredient was on its own, beating its neighbors in the real dance of the US culinary arts. Sweet beans were a counterbalance to salted meat, and the taste of the dill in the sauce — and it must be the taste of dill — was acidic enough to cut away some of the wealth. It was the best American junk food and I wish I did a double batch. To show your culinary patriotism, you will need:
- 3/4 pound hamburger meat
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 very large onion, thinly sliced
- 4 hot dogs, diced with coins
- 2 cups cooked mac and cheese (I bought them at the grocery store)
- 1 small 8.3 oz can of baked beans
- 4 slices of American cheese
- 1 tube of sickle roll batter
- 1 egg, beaten
- Toasted sesame seeds
- 2 tablespoons ketchup
- 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
- 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon dill marinade (not sweet)
Season the hamburger meat with Worcestershire sauce, salt and garlic powder and cook in a large skillet over medium heat until brown and crispy around the edges, crushing with a spatula as you cook. Remove the meat with a spatula or slotted spoon and let it drain on paper towels, leaving as much hamburger fat as possible in the skillet. Add the onions and quickly sauté them in hot oil until tender and lightly browned around the edges. (The atmosphere you’re aiming for will be “fried,” not “caramelized.”) Remove the onions from the skillet, toss in the hot dogs, and cook these meaty coins until they are well browned. You are now ready to create your most wonderful creation.
Place the macaroni and cheese first to form the base layer, pour the jar of beans on top and spread them out. Then add the meat and distribute the burger and dog as evenly as possible. Top with fried onions and four delicious slices of American cheese. Finally, take a crescent-shaped jar of dough, open it and take out as much as you need to completely cover the casserole; I only used four triangles. (Bake the rest of the dough in a crescent shape, as Pillsbury intended, because crescent rolls are pretty good.) Brush the dough with a beaten egg, sprinkle as many sesame seeds as you like, and place the whole thing in a 375-degree oven. the crust is golden brown, about half an hour.
Remove your masterpiece from the oven and let it cool slightly while you mix the last four ingredients to make the burger sauce.
Drizzle over the gravy, take a bite out of the patriotic flavor, and savor some of the best things America has to offer. We may not be very good at many things, but we are the undisputed champions of salty, slightly sweet, greasy and delicious food.