The win-win combination of potatoes and meat, which served as the basis of the casserole, will never disappoint the hostess. Whether raw potatoes, boiled or involved in the recipe - it does not matter. Qualification of a home chef does not matter either. Let's take a closer look at how the potato casserole with minced meat is prepared. A step-by-step recipe with photos will help in mastering a simple dish.
Mashed potato and toasted minced meat casserole
To begin, consider the traditional way of cooking this famous dish. It will feature mashed potatoes. The taste will remind many of those same casseroles that are customary to serve in the catering. To prepare a homemade option, we take the following ingredients:
- 1 kg of fresh peeled mashed potatoes;
- large onions - 1 piece;
- minced meat in half consisting of pork and beef - 400 g;
- chicken egg - 1 piece;
- garlic - 2 cloves;
- butter - 40 grams;
- vegetable oil - 4 tbsp. spoons;
- salt;
- Bay leaf;
- ground black pepper to taste.
Cooking mashed potatoes
In order for the mashed potatoes to be cooked faster, before you send it to the pan, cut the ingredient into pieces. Immediately add the garlic, bay leaf and salt. Garlic cloves do not need to be cleaned. When the potatoes boil, it is necessary to remove the foam. After the knife, without interference entering one of the potatoes, signals us that it is ready, turn off the fire and remove the bay leaf and garlic from the pan. They did their job, gave away the taste and aroma, and in the future potato casserole with minced meat in the oven will do without these components.
Drain the pan, but not all. Part of the liquid (with a volume of about a glass) we need in order to make mashed potatoes more magnificent. Chop the potatoes and add the butter. If desired, the mass can be slightly beaten with a blender.
Roast minced meat
A casserole with minced meat and potatoes in the oven, the recipe of which we offer you, will not turn out so tasty if the minced meat is not fried. We cut a large onion in half rings and fry in a pan until transparent and slightly golden crust. Add minced meat, salt, pepper and only slightly fry, you do not need to bring it to full readiness. It is enough that the onion is completely fried. The taste of fried onions has never spoiled culinary dishes.
Put the ingredients in a baking dish
So we go to the finish line. Potato casserole with minced meat, the recipe of which we are developing, is almost ready to be sent to the oven. It remains to take the baking container, thoroughly grease it with melted butter and put the components in the necessary sequence. By the way, it's time to turn on the oven. After all, while we lay the layers of the future casserole, the temperature in the oven should warm up to 180 degrees.
At the very bottom of the form we will stack only half the finished mashed potato, then carefully level the mass with a spoon. The next step is to lay the fried minced meat. The meat layer in our casserole will be in a single copy, so for the first half of mashed potatoes we send all the minced meat with fried onions to the pan from the pan. Then cover the meat mass with the remaining part of the mashed potatoes and smooth again. In order for the potato casserole with minced meat in the oven to turn rosy, spread a beaten egg on the surface of the dish. Now with the help of a fork, you can create beautiful patterns. Most likely, the oven is already languishing in anticipation. We send our dish into it until fully cooked for 30 minutes. If the casserole is browned a little earlier, the total cooking time can be reduced.
Potato casserole with minced meat: a quick recipe
How we love to cook dishes that do not take our precious time. For those who cherish every minute, we offer one more, alternative version of this dish. This time, a potato casserole with minced meat in the oven will do without mashed potatoes and preliminary frying the ingredients. Send the ingredients to the baking sheet in raw form. For cooking, we need:
- 1 kg of fresh peeled potatoes;
- minced pork - 300-400 g;
- onion turnip - 1 piece;
- tomato paste - 3 tbsp. spoons;
- hard cheese - 200 g;
- a few cloves of garlic (to taste);
- vegetable oil for form lubrication;
- salt and spices.
Mix the ingredients and cook the potato chips.
For the most part, recipes for cooking potato casseroles with minced meat imply that the hostess already has a ready-made meat cake on the table. We are armed with a blender, which will further accelerate the process. First, put the minced meat in a bowl, salt and mix with tomato paste. There we send the chopped onion and garlic, pepper. All mix well. Then we process the potatoes and grind it into chips with a special grater knife and immediately salt. In the absence of such a device, you can use a regular grater with a large nozzle.
We arm ourselves with foil
Potato casserole with minced meat in the oven will not stick to the bottom of the dishes during cooking, if the bottom of the form is covered with food foil. Lubricate the foil layer with sunflower oil. Potato chips, as in the first recipe, will be divided into two equal parts. We put half in the baking dish, then make a layer of minced meat. The third layer will again be potatoes. Now rub the cheese on a coarse grater and cover it with the entire surface of the second potato layer. If the amount of cheese indicated in the recipe is not enough, feel free to increase the proportion.
The oven should also be preheated. Taking into account that raw ingredients are involved in the dish, we increase the total baking time to 50 minutes. This time is enough to completely get both minced meat and potatoes. Cheese on top of the dish forms a golden brown crust, and the smell invitingly spreads throughout the apartment. While the dish is being prepared, the hostess can safely do some other important things.
Potato casserole with minced meat: recipes, cooking tips
- Minced meat for the dish is better to use mixed. It is better to supplement too fatty ground pork with beef, and for dietary purposes, resort to a mix of ground beef and chicken.
- It is better to choose potatoes for a dish of dense, medium size, without a characteristic green tint. Greening signals the long-term storage of the vegetable in the light and the accumulation of substances harmful to human health.
- Before cooking, the potatoes are not soaked in cold water: this is able to extract most of the vitamins and minerals from the product.
- Do not rush to immediately cut the finished casserole into pieces, let it stand for a while, and the components should mate properly. This will prevent the dish from falling apart.
- The finished dish can be decorated with fresh herbs and several thin slices of tomato.
- Potato casserole goes well with vegetables, so the dish is most often served along with a light vegetable salad.
- In order to diversify the diet, the minced meat in the dish is replaced with any other ingredients. So, if desired, instead of mince, you can use slices of bacon, a layer of stewed cabbage, mushrooms and even the liver.
We believe that this easy-to-execute and extremely tasty dish, no matter what variations it is performed, will not disappoint you. Enjoy your meal!