A question for the cooking types

[swan_tower]

I have a recipe that was originally intended as a side dish, and has been made into more of a main dish with the addition of hamburger — but it’s kind of a bland main dish. So I’m looking for ways to improve it, and I figured some of you who read this journal could probably make suggestions.

The recipe in its original form contains:

wild rice
onion
celery
salt and pepper
cream of mushroom soup
cream of chicken soup

Which you bake into a casserole, adding hamburger if this isn’t a side dish. But like I said: bland. Any recommendations for things I could add or substitute that would make it more flavorful? Note that household tastes mean we aren’t going to go for anything involving spiciness, fungus, or cilantro. But other options are fair game.

Ideas?

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[bjornwilde]

Rosemary comes to mind, or garlic salt (Trader Joe's has a grinder with dried garlic cloves and rock salt). I'm more inclined to rosemary to brighten the flavors.

[genarti]

Rosemary, yes, and/or thyme, and/or oregano all spring to mind. Individually, or in one of those Mixed Italian Seasonings spice blends if you like that.

I might saute the hamburger with a bunch of herbs, and probably some garlic, before adding it to the casserole dish -- making it more strongly herby than I otherwise would, since it'll be surrounded by rice and a blander sauce. I'd think that would do a lot to jazz it up.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Any number of things you can do with that. Here are a few off the top of my head

spice up the meat (assuming it's the main dish variant). Heat some oil in a pan until smoking, add minced garlic, brown on medium-low heat until it's fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add diced onion. Once onion softens and turns semi-transparent, add the meat, and spices. Some spice suggestions would be: smoked paprika (sweet rather than hot, since you don't want spiciness), allspice, small amounts of nutmeg and/or cumin.
Turn up the heat to high and stir to brown the hamburger. Then add the mix to the casserole as usual.

For the side dish variant, consider adding some saffron to the rice. The flavour is fairly subtle -- as much aroma as taste -- so hamburger might overwhelm it.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Mmm, interesting. I think of some of those as "dessert" spices; would not have thought to try them on meat. Any suggestions as to proportions?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hunh. This is that US technique of cooking-with-soup, and I'm not sure I can help: partly because I've never done it (not a British thing at all), and partly because my instance response to blandness is "add more spicy!"

Or, of course, "fungus!" - and it's a good thing you reminded me not to do that, because - well, hell, there's mushroom in the soup, presumably...?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And you are correct to think that curry powder would work for this for some other audience, and my grandmother makes a thing that is essentially this but with broccoli and curry powder and cheese added. (You may have to tip your head to the side to see it, but it'll come out eventually....) But for this audience, yeah, no.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Reminded as I am that "spiciness" does not necessarily equate to using spices (we tend to say "hot" where you say "spicy" - which can of course also lead to confusion: "is it hot hot or chilli hot?"), let me add to icedrake's list: try fennel seed for an interesting flavour addition, and/or a sliced head of fennel (sold rather confusingly as "anise" in some stores hereabouts) fried up with the onion. I would certainly fry the onion - slowly! - before baking, to bring out both the savoury and the sweet. And I'd add garlic and very likely ginger too.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

My issue with mushrooms is one of texture rather than taste, so cream of mushroom soup passes muster where actual chunks of mushroom would not.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you know what goes amazingly with wild rice and mushrooms and probably those other things too, and is not spicy or cilantro?

BASIL.

ALL THE WORLD'S SUPPLY OF BASIL.

And also some almonds on the top so it goes crunchety crunchety in a different way from celery or wild rice. But it does not matter if it's dried basil or fresh basil you have rolled into a chiffonade and chopped. Basil is your friend. Basil is amazing and lovely and your besty best best friend.

Possibly also a nice sprinkling of lightly sharp cheese like Parmesan or Asiago with those almonds. BUT BASIL.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

(I meant the mushrooms in the soup. Obv. I hope obv.)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I would totally put almonds on top if kniedzw did not object to nuts in his food. (Nuts on their own are okay. But he dislikes the texture differential when they're in other stuff.)

Basil, on the other hand, is entirely within the realm of possibility. And I would not have thought of cheese, but I may give that a shot.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hunh - I had basil down as one of those herbs that you have to use fresh, because it loses all savour when it's dried. This may be a hangover from 1970s British dried basil, which is my only experience. It is possible that techniques have improved since then...

[msss.livejournal.com]

Parsley?

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I have an entirely unjustified assumption that parsley is tasteless. It isn't. But it's so thoroughly slotted in to my head as "garnish" that I forget to even think about it as flavoring. Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

According to my wild rice cookbook, Worcestershire sauce.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

That's my usual strategy with bland food: add something like Worcestershire or soy sauce, or if I were an adventurous person any of the other bottles in the cabinet near the stove.

[slashmarks.livejournal.com]

I'd probably go with garlic and basil or thyme.

[cgbookcat1.livejournal.com]

Yes, thyme and beef go well together!

[brooksmoses]

Sort of generally, fresh herbs do wonders for things like this. Basil, parsley, tarragon, marjoram, savory, thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary.... Whatever is handy and smells like it would go well. (My brother, when a student in Berkeley, would never buy rosemary at the store; he'd just find a convenient hedge on his way home to snap a twig or two off of.)

If you're going with dried herbs, savory and sage and maybe a bit of powdered rosemary or bay leaf would work pretty well, I think.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I feel like if I familiarized myself with cooking more, I could be great at the "smells like it would go well" approach. But at my level of non-skill, I have a very strong sense of smell, and zero instinct for what will pair appropriately.

[rosefox]

What I would do with those ingredients:

Throw out the cream of whatever soup. That's most of your problem right there.

Start with some good olive oil; heat it up in the pan and fry a good teaspoon or so of an earthy spice like cumin, or a spice mix like curry powder or ras el hanout. If you're adding garlic, fry the garlic then too, for just a minute or so. Add in the meat (I'd personally prefer ground turkey over beef for this set of flavors) and brown it, seasoning it well with salt and pepper. Set it aside and drain most of the fat and liquid from the pan.

Dice the onion and celery and some carrot, in roughly equal proportions. Sauté them in the same pan, using the leftover fat from the meat, with generous amounts of fresh or dried thyme and oregano. Set them aside.

Deglaze the pan with chicken broth for chicken or turkey, or beef broth for beef. Add a splash of white wine or sherry vinegar for brightness and a dash of Gravy Master for richness. Whisk in some almond cream*. Return the meat and veg to the pan and mix well with the sauce. Serve over the wild rice, which has been cooking all this time in the rice cooker.

* If you prefer dairy products, consult a dairy-eating person on how to do this so that it doesn't curdle.

If you'd prefer to keep it as a casserole, definitely experiment with all the flavor notes mentioned above, especially the vinegar and Gravy Master. Also try soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Bragg's liquid aminos, liquid smoke, mustard, and/or tomato paste (especially sundried tomato paste). Lots of tasty things come in bottles. :)

[squishymeister.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the 39 comments, so it's possible that I'm being repetitive... but it sounds a bit like it could be improved with cheese (I think melted cheese makes most things better).

You could try this for a sauce:

2 cans of cream of chicken soup (or you can stick to the 2 you have now)
1 cup mayo
1-2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2-3 t of curry powder (not spicy, just a bit of flavour)

Maybe try it with (cooked) chicken and broccoli instead of beef?

Put your meat into a casserole dish first, followed by your veggies (I'd do just broccoli, but you could do the onion and celery combo.. experiment with different combinations). Then pour the sauce over it, and keep out some of the cheddar cheese from the sauce to sprinkle on top. Put in the oven at 350 until it's hot through- maybe 30-40 minutes?

[squishymeister.livejournal.com]

and serve with the rice, obviously ;)

[vcmw]

I'd lean toward adding garlic, carrot (diced small, cooked with onion) and maybe marjoram or thyme to that.

One way I get flavor ideas is to read recipes that have the ingredients I'm using and see what else the recipe suggests adding. I think there are recipe sites where you can say what you have and they suggest recipes? If so, I might browse that for, say, "wild rice / onion / celery / chicken" or "wild rice / onion / celery / mushroom" or whatever the key ingredients of this are for you, and see what other things the recipes have in them, and consider adding a few?

Speaking of, I don't really cook with meat, but what about making this a main dish by cooking or serving poultry-things on top of the casserole part, as an alternative to ground meat in it? (Since it already has chicken stock flavors in the creamed soups?)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

My family tends to use cream of celery soup rather than the others-- it tends to be a little lighter flavored and just generally a bit perkier than the mushrooms and the chickens. Also paprika.

We also do something rather like this wherein you put in chicken instead of beef; no need to precook if you're baking long enough to cook the rice. Fresh asparagus (added in the last 15 minutes, if you prefer it not completely cooked to canned texture) goes well.

[aliseadae]

I had two thoughts:

Thought one: garlic, cumin and coriander.

Thought two: garlic, rosemary, and thyme.

But garlic. Garlic is important.

[aliseadae]

Oh and red or orange bell pepper! Those are tasty and add crunch. And asiago or parmesan cheese. Sometimes I use cheese like it is salt.

[sarcastibich.livejournal.com]

Use those ingredients, but stuff them in a small pumpkin (like maybe 8 inch diameter) and bake it inside the pumpkin. When ready to serve, scoop out some of the pumpkin with it.

Or, add a dash of soy sauce or worchestchire sauce on top. The salt/umami flavor will match nicely.

[sarcastibich.livejournal.com]

or if it isn't pumpkin season or you can't find one of the right size, get another kind of squash you like. You could bake said squash briefly to partially cook, then toss in the skillet at the same time as the onions and celery to finish softening before baking.

I'd recommend a butternut squash, personally. Although if you wanted to do variant on the original recipe you could use spaghetti squash instead of wild rice.

[wolfheart17.livejournal.com]

This is essentially Hot Dish, which is a midwestern standard. Al Franken runs an annual Hot Dish contest among the Minnesota congressional delegation, you can look up the winners of such for suggestions.

I have it from a Michigander that honey mustard adds a nice zing to such a dish, I have not tried so myself, but it sounds tasty. Other such sauces to add salt (e.g. worcestershire, soy sauce, etc. ) also are good.

This dish practically cries out for cheese. Cheddar to be classic, or a cheddar mozzarella blend. My Minnesota wife states that this is the only way to remain loyal to the way Hot Dish is intended. I, as an east coast snob say you can use something like Parmesan or Assiago for a different take.

My wife and I agree that adding a vegetable like green beans or peas can help the dish.

sautéing the onion and celery can help develop flavors. You can also add carrot ( for a traditional mirepoix ) or green pepper ( for Trinity ) to bring out flavors.

I, personally, am a big fan of adding herbs. Thyme or sage is what I would recommend here.

Happy to give more details if any of these sound interesting.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

You already have a lot of good suggestions, but I figured that I'd chime in - my mom makes essentially this dish, but instead of hamburger, she uses breakfast sausage, sauteed and then cut into 1 inch lengths. The sausages add a little more 'oomph' than hamburger - I certainly wouldn't call the result bland (there may also be a glug or two of Worchestershire involved, I'm not sure). ('Breakfast sausages' in my family's case are the Bob Evans ones - don't know if they're available on your coast. I have recently discovered that they make a turkey version of same, which is almost as good as the original.)

-Nameseeker