I’m not sure if it’s the financial climate or the weather, but this winter we have been going wild for seventies-style casserole dishes. Popping the pot in the oven, rubbing down that olive wood salad bowl with a clove of garlic and eating from pottery plates. While they’re in the oven I often flick through one of my favorite interiors inspirations: Terence Conran’s House Book - the version published in 1974.
Two of my favorites were probably last fashionable then, or when The Good Life was on the telly.
Smokey sausage casserole
OK so sausages aren’t my favorite food and they’re not exactly a slimmer’s first choice. But if you can make this and leave overnight, slowly reheating the following day, they take on so much of the flavour they’re delicious.
You need a good big heavy casserole dish with a lid!
Preheat the oven. Fry 12 good sausages on a medium heat for a few minutes until browned all over. Pop in the dish. Chop up into large chunks and fry six thick slices of bacon and pop these in on top of the sausages. Slice two medium red onions and fry on a low heat until softened, add two chopped garlic cloves, and stir, then add two teaspoons of paprika, stir in over the heat and then tip over the sausages and bacon.
Now add to the pot two 400g tins of tomatoes, a 400g tin of cannellini beans (drained obv, and lentils are a Good Life alternative), 400g chopped pumpkin, 300 ml of chicken or vegetable stock, two bay leaves, three to four sprigs of thyme, salt and pepper and then bring to a simmer on the stove top.
Once it’s simmering stir gently but well and transfer to the oven. Depending on when you’re eating you can cook for 40 mins at top blast and have a just cooked and slightly soupy version, or you can cook on a lower heat for a few hours. Or you can cook and leave overnight to really develop.
I like to serve with crusty brown bread, crème fraîche and some fresh spinach leaves.
Tuna casserole
This dish always reminds me of childhood in Australia when it was a winter favorite. A big dish is required for this too as the recipe feeds six. Unlike the sausage casserole this is awful the following day so either have pals over, or get yourself a Jack Russell.
Preheat the oven and grease a large dish. Cook 250 grams of dried short pasta the usual way and drain. (That “fresh” pasta in the supermarkets is one of my real bugbears - I like fusilli bucati myself.)
Melt 40g butter in a heavy based saucepan and add three tablespoons or so of wholemeal flour. Stir until it takes on that nutty smell. Whisk in slowly one and a half cups of milk (dairy, soy, rice, whatever) and then about 300g of light crème fraîche. At this point you can remove from the heat and whisk in one or two raw eggs. I put one in, but never two. Just seems a bit much? Season and quickly stir through a finely chopped small onion and a cup of cheese (tasty or Gruyère), the pasta, one well drained and rinsed 425 gram tin of tuna in springwater, and then add some chopped parsley, a good squeeze of lemon juice and about half a teaspoon of grated nutmeg. I also add whatever I fancy that is handy - usually chestnut mushrooms chopped in half or some spinach.
Stir well and pour into the greased dish. sprinkle over lts of breadcrumbs and then a little melted butter and pop in the oven for about half an hour. The top will be golden brown. Stand a few minutes before serving with freshly steamed broccoli.
