Oven casseroles cooked in the oven today are frequent guests at our daily dining table. And this is not surprising. Not only are such dishes prepared very quickly, they are also tasty and nutritious. In addition, for their preparation, you can use many products that were left after any festival or just yesterday's dinner.
Basic rules and cooking tips
Oven casseroles are cooked very quickly. As a rule, no more than half an hour. This must be remembered and never use the principle of "let it stand a little more - it will be tastier." Will not be. As a result, you can get a dried up burnt-out dish. So keep that in mind when learning how to cook dishes such as meat casseroles in the oven.
As the name implies, the main component of this dish is meat. Most often, mincemeat is used to prepare meat casseroles. If you don’t have it ready, but you are too lazy to do it yourself, you can just finely chop the chicken or pork fillet. Large pieces are not recommended to be taken for the reason that they are simply poorly baked. But if nevertheless there is a great desire to take just such meat (or a dish, say, is intended for a festive table), then try to find the time to repulse these pieces, and be sure from both sides.
As for additives, absolutely any products are suitable here: potatoes or mashed potatoes, pasta, vegetables, rice, even any cereal yesterday. Often recipes suggest the use of cheese as an additional ingredient. But, as a rule, if a meat casserole is cooked with cheese in the oven, then, in addition to these two ingredients, there is also a third one - all the same pasta, potatoes, etc. Even buckwheat is perfect for preparing such a dish.
Here, perhaps, are all the basic rules. And then we will move on to the practical part and tell you how to cook potato and meat casserole in the oven - the most common and most beloved dish by our hostesses.
Russian-style meat casserole
To cook such a simple but very tasty dish, the hostess should stock up: potatoes (ten pieces will be enough), four medium carrots, the same amount of onions, six hundred grams (pork-beef mix is welcome) minced meat, two tablespoons of sour cream and four - mayonnaise, a slice of any hard cheese (one hundred grams), a few cloves of garlic and one tablespoon of ketchup.
Let's agree: every housewife knows that spices and salt are needed. But not everyone fits the number that is recommended by recipes. Therefore, we will not mention further. Solim-pepper by default, according to whoever you like best.
Cooking
In principle, everything is simple. Peel the potato, wash it, cut it into circles. Rub carrots on a coarse grater, chop the onion arbitrarily. We spread half the potatoes in a greased form with the first layer, on top - minced meat, then onions and carrots. If desired, the last two ingredients can be fried, but then the dish will turn out to be more high-calorie. Cover with the remaining potato slices. We make the sauce: mix a glass of boiled water with sour cream, ketchup and mayonnaise, add chopped garlic to the same place. We water our dish and send it for half an hour to the oven at a temperature of two hundred degrees. After that, open the oven, take out the dish, sprinkle the grated cheese with the casserole and put it back for another 10 minutes.
If desired, you can slightly modify the recipe: instead of raw potatoes, take ready-made mashed potatoes.
That's all. Quickly, simply and at the exit we get a delicious hearty dish.
Next, talk about how to cook a meat casserole with pasta in the oven.
Lazy climbing
To prepare such a dish, it will be necessary for us to have pasta (feathers are perfect in this case), but only from durum wheat, any kind of minced meat (you can take chicken or turkey - about half a kilogram), tomatoes (four things), carrot, onion and sweet pepper (one each). You also need to stock up on a glass of cream (can be replaced with milk), butter (thirty grams), three tablespoons of flour. And herbs - let's say, take basil. But you can parsley. Or both.
Cooking process
We make frying from grated carrots and randomly chopped onions. Then add minced meat to it, fry for about ten minutes. Boil (necessarily until half-ready - this is an indispensable condition) feathers. In a separate pan, first fry the tomatoes, then add to them - for one minute - chopped pepper. We make a sauce of warmed milk / cream, butter, flour. Do not forget to salt (remember?).
And we begin to fill out the form in layers in the following order: half pasta + half sauce + half minced meat + full amount of pepper and tomatoes + pasta leftovers + minced meat + remaining sauce. We send everything to bake in the oven for half an hour at a temperature of no more than two hundred degrees.
How to cook a meat casserole with rice in the oven
And it is prepared in an elementary and very fast way. In two glasses of water you need to brew a glass of washed rice. Fry four hundred grams of minced meat with one chopped onion. Mix rice (cooled) with two eggs. Take the form, grease it with oil, put half of the rice, then - the whole stuffing, cover with the remaining cereals. Cook for half an hour at a temperature of one hundred and ninety degrees.
This is the easiest recipe. Want a cheese casserole? You are welcome! Sprinkle it with them before sending them to the oven. Love sharper? Add ketchup to the minced meat. Experiment. Anyway, get a delicious dish at the exit.
And how to cook a meat casserole with vegetables in the oven?
Yes, just the same - fast and easy. We take chicken breast, onions, tomatoes, sweet pepper, potatoes, as well as eggplant - four each. Cut the meat into small pieces. Little blue and potatoes - circles. Tomatoes - in ordinary pieces. Then put all this in a greased form in layers: meat, onions + potatoes + blue + peppers and tomatoes. Sprinkle with grated cheese, you can sprinkle green peas beautifully on top - if you wish. Then we grease everything with mayonnaise. Such a dish is prepared in the oven for about forty minutes. The optimum temperature is one hundred eighty degrees.
When cooking vegetable meat casseroles in the oven, you can experiment in different ways. Based on the recipe we have proposed, the vegetable composition can be modified as the hostess wants. You can take zucchini, and cauliflower, or even ready-made frozen vegetable mixes, semi-finished products.
And finally
If you really don’t have time or do not want to mess around in the kitchen, you can make a delicious casserole from a minimum of ingredients. Make a fry of carrots and onions, then add minced meat (in principle, half a kilogram will be enough. Put it all in shape, put it in the oven for twenty minutes. As a result, by and large, you will get a big cutlet. It needs to be removed from the oven , cover the slices of tomato and generously sprinkle with grated cheese. And then again send it to the oven for five or ten minutes. However, you will see for yourself. Once the cheese is melted, we can assume that the dish is ready.
Enjoy your meal!