Yes, I would imagine canned beans would work, although I agree with @Gee D that rinsing is in order. Dry beans are great to store on the shelves without taking up too much room, but the whole soak-overnight thing does make them less user friendly.
I don't think there'd be much difference between the space needed for a couple of 240g cans and a packet of the dried beans. You're right about the overnight soaking, very difficult in the days when we were working.
I've noticed that some canned beans and chickpeas here need a lot of rinsing as they seem to be soaked in something other than just water, I think it's brine.
I think a pressure cooker would be a bit beyond my budget at the moment, but am quite happy with soaking.
Today the temperature is forecast to reach 22c and Metservice are warning it could be the last of summery weather so it's a good day to explore the local wholefood shops. YaY for free buses for people over 65.
I've noticed that some canned beans and chickpeas here need a lot of rinsing as they seem to be soaked in something other than just water, I think it's brine.
I think a pressure cooker would be a bit beyond my budget at the moment, but am quite happy with soaking.
Today the temperature is forecast to reach 22c and Metservice are warning it could be the last of summery weather so it's a good day to explore the local wholefood shops. YaY for free buses for people over 65.
If you have local charity shops/thrift stores (not sure if the Salvos and their stores are as big in NZ as they are in Aus) that accept small electrical appliances, they are a good place to see if anyone has donated an Instant Pot or another electric pressure cooker. I think the stovetop kind get donated quite a lot (and IKEA sells them cheaply) but they're far too scary in my opinion!
I've noticed that some canned beans and chickpeas here need a lot of rinsing as they seem to be soaked in something other than just water, I think it's brine.
You can buy canned beans with no salt added. I do however also rinse these as well.
Just discovered the concept of "breakfast casserole" which may or may not involve cubes of bread, among other things, but either way is baked, cut into squares and served.
"Casserole" IME is interchangeable with "stew" and not something you'd normally have for breakfast but ok. But how it got from a stew to a traybake that's cut into squares I have no idea. And am now not sure what to expect any more if someone mentions a "casserole".
Just discovered the concept of "breakfast casserole" which may or may not involve cubes of bread, among other things, but either way is baked, cut into squares and served.
"Casserole" IME is interchangeable with "stew" and not something you'd normally have for breakfast but ok. But how it got from a stew to a traybake that's cut into squares I have no idea. And am now not sure what to expect any more if someone mentions a "casserole".
Where I live, casserole is not at all interchangeable with stew. Stew is cooked in a pot on top of the stove (or in a crockpot/slow cooker), served in a bowl and eaten with a spoon. Casserole is baked in a casserole dish, served on a plate and eaten with a fork. Here (Southern US), a casserole typically contains some form of protein and perhaps vegetables, with something to hold it all together. Breakfast casseroles, in my experience, may include sausage, rice or bread, eggs and cheese.
As far as I'm concerned, in the UK sense of the term a stew is cooked on the stovetop and a casserole is cooked in the oven - though interestingly I think of such a dish cooked in a slow cooker as being a stew. But in terms of ingredients they're the same.
@Ariel this is a Pond Difference as far as I can tell. American casseroles tend to be something cooked in a casserole dish, often something like what would be called a pasta bake in the UK.
Just discovered the concept of "breakfast casserole" which may or may not involve cubes of bread, among other things, but either way is baked, cut into squares and served.
"Casserole" IME is interchangeable with "stew" and not something you'd normally have for breakfast but ok. But how it got from a stew to a traybake that's cut into squares I have no idea. And am now not sure what to expect any more if someone mentions a "casserole".
Where I live, casserole is not at all interchangeable with stew. Stew is cooked in a pot on top of the stove (or in a crockpot/slow cooker), served in a bowl and eaten with a spoon. Casserole is baked in a casserole dish, served on a plate and eaten with a fork. Here (Southern US), a casserole typically contains some form of protein and perhaps vegetables, with something to hold it all together. Breakfast casseroles, in my experience, may include sausage, rice or bread, eggs and cheese.
If you cooked a stew in a casserole dish in the oven, would you still call it a stew?
@Ariel this is a Pond Difference as far as I can tell. American casseroles tend to be something cooked in a casserole dish, often something like what would be called a pasta bake in the UK.
ISTM you're correct that a Pond Difference is at work here. North Americans would be unlikely, IME, to call a heavy enameled pot a casserole... more likely to call it a Dutch oven. What people here would call a casserole dish here is usually made of ceramic or glass, and a good deal more shallow than a Dutch oven.
I would be surprised if someone here cooked a stew in (what I would call) a casserole dish in the oven, as the vessel I'm thinking of would not be deep enough nor hold enough liquid for a stew. It might be covered and called a braise though.
Just discovered the concept of "breakfast casserole" which may or may not involve cubes of bread, among other things, but either way is baked, cut into squares and served.
"Casserole" IME is interchangeable with "stew" and not something you'd normally have for breakfast but ok. But how it got from a stew to a traybake that's cut into squares I have no idea. And am now not sure what to expect any more if someone mentions a "casserole".
Where I live, casserole is not at all interchangeable with stew. Stew is cooked in a pot on top of the stove (or in a crockpot/slow cooker), served in a bowl and eaten with a spoon. Casserole is baked in a casserole dish, served on a plate and eaten with a fork. Here (Southern US), a casserole typically contains some form of protein and perhaps vegetables, with something to hold it all together. Breakfast casseroles, in my experience, may include sausage, rice or bread, eggs and cheese.
If you cooked a stew in a casserole dish in the oven, would you still call it a stew?
Well, I would never cook stew in a casserole dish in the oven, so I guess the answer is “no.”
Stew and casserole, as used where I am, are very different dishes.
@Ariel this is a Pond Difference as far as I can tell. American casseroles tend to be something cooked in a casserole dish, often something like what would be called a pasta bake in the UK.
ISTM you're correct that a Pond Difference is at work here. North Americans would be unlikely, IME, to call a heavy enameled pot a casserole... more likely to call it a Dutch oven. What people here would call a casserole dish here is usually made of ceramic or glass, and a good deal more shallow than a Dutch oven.
Yes, a casserole dish is usually just a few inches deep.
I think y’all are right that a Pond Difference is at work.
Btw "traybake" is not commonly used on this side of the Pond.
Traybake in the UK usually refers to something akin to what North Americans call bars (like lemon bars) or sheet cake - a type of cake you bake to cut up into squares or slices like brownies, often to be sold at school bake sales and the like. It can be a cake or more like a pastry, like caramel slices (nowadays called millionaire's shortbread but was always a caramel slice when I was a kid).
Confusingly it also now seems to mean a dish made up of meat and vegetables baked as a sort of one pot meal on a tray, but a dry roasted type rather than a stew.
@Ariel this is a Pond Difference as far as I can tell. American casseroles tend to be something cooked in a casserole dish, often something like what would be called a pasta bake in the UK.
ISTM you're correct that a Pond Difference is at work here. North Americans would be unlikely, IME, to call a heavy enameled pot a casserole... more likely to call it a Dutch oven. What people here would call a casserole dish here is usually made of ceramic or glass, and a good deal more shallow than a Dutch oven.
I would be surprised if someone here cooked a stew in (what I would call) a casserole dish in the oven, as the vessel I'm thinking of would not be deep enough nor hold enough liquid for a stew. It might be covered and called a braise though.
If you put a stew in a dutch oven and then cooked it in the oven, would it still be a stew?
In the UK cooking stews and braised dishes in the oven came about from taking such dishes to be cooked in the local baker's oven, akin to other European dishes such as Eintopf. Using the residual heat from an oven used for baking was often more economical than cooking on a stovetop, even once domestic ranges became more common.
In my experience both the shallow and deep/heavy dishes are called casserole dishes here, we would just distinguish between them based on size or whether they were 'flameproof' ie could also be used on top of the stove as well as in the oven. Ceramic/stoneware ones as big as the dutch oven type but which can only be used in the oven are reasonably common as well as the shallower ceramic or Pyrex type (Pyrex in the UK uses the old borosilicate glass formula). The cast iron type is much less common and we also don't have much of a history of using cast iron pots once domestic ranges became a thing. The range was used for heating and hot water as well as cooking, and cooking outdoors in post-Georgian times has historically been fueled by spirit or paraffin lamps rather than a campfire for weather reasons. So the dutch oven as Americans know them is not a very British thing - enameled cast iron is more common via Le Creuset, but stoneware for using in the oven or a normal stockpot for using on the stove is cheaper to produce and much more normal.
I came across oss the term Breakfast Casserole on here some time last year, and was similarly puzzled.
Having looked for recipes I came to the conclusion that the nearest dish in my repertoire is a frittata (or Spanish omelette with much more than the traditional onions & potato added to the mix).
Normally I cook mine on the stove top in a shallow gratin dish, but on the odd occasion when feeding more than the two of us I have baked the same recipe in the oven, which is what I thought the breakfast casserole most resembled.
Try as I might, I just can't join 'breakfast' and 'casserole' into any dish I can think of. 'Cooked breakfast' to me covers anything from bacon and eggs to omelette, frittata, pancakes - in fact, anything fried or boiled. Baking seems wrong because it implies a time of preparation followed by a longish interval of actual cooking. Whereas Break Fast is just that - you get up, feel hungry, want something quickly.
"Grilled" is another difference - an American student once made me a grilled cheese sandwich which I suppose was essentially "griddled" but not the toasted cheese I'd expected as it was fried in a greased pan. Languages do split and diverge so this is another concept to bear in mind.
Yes I was flummoxed for a time by grilling and broiling.
To me, grilling was applying heat from above. Cookers came with 'eye-level' grills, and subsequently grills integral to the oven (bad ideas both of them).
Broiling I long thought was a version of boiling.
Griddling to me is cooking on a ridged pan/surface, frying is cooking in a flat, greased pan, and barbecuing is on bars over coals or flame.
Roasting is in an oven.
Braising can be either oven or stovetop but implies a closed vessel and liquid.
"Grilled" is another difference - an American student once made me a grilled cheese sandwich which I suppose was essentially "griddled" but not the toasted cheese I'd expected as it was fried in a greased pan. Languages do split and diverge so this is another concept to bear in mind.
“Grilled cheese sandwich” is kind of a one-off use of “grill,” in my Southern American experience. Other than that one example, to “grill” is to cook it on a “grill”—an apparatus of parallel bars that holds the food over a direct or indirect heat source. For example, one might “grill” hamburgers on an outdoor grill.
Never, in this corner of the world, does one “barbecue” hamburgers, nor is what hamburgers are cooked on outdoors called a “barbecue.” Barbecuing (as used here) is slow cooking over low, indirect heat, generally with smoke used to impart flavor. “Barbecue,” as a noun without any qualification, is pork—either the whole pig or a pork shoulder—cooked in this manner. (In other places, “barbecue” as a noun may typically refer to beef that has been barbecued.)
Try as I might, I just can't join 'breakfast' and 'casserole' into any dish I can think of. 'Cooked breakfast' to me covers anything from bacon and eggs to omelette, frittata, pancakes - in fact, anything fried or boiled. Baking seems wrong because it implies a time of preparation followed by a longish interval of actual cooking. Whereas Break Fast is just that - you get up, feel hungry, want something quickly.
Most breakfast casseroles I’ve encountered are made the day/night before left to sit in the fridge overnight, and then cooked in the morning.. At least at our house, they’re the sort of thing we might make for a special occasion, like a holiday breakfast, or when we have overnight guests.
Casseroles in my experience (mostly Midwestern United States) are non-liquid able-to-be a-full-meal mixtures that work well for church or family potlucks. They are also the short of thing you give new parents or the newly bereaved to freeze and eat later. They are normally more solid than stews.
Descending order of runniness is soup, stew, casserole, bake - where the last has either a thick sauce or none at all.
“Bake” is not used in this sense in my part of the US. For example, my impression is that folks in the UK might speak of a “pasta bake,” while we’d speak of, say, “baked spaghetti” or”baked ziti,” either of which would qualify as a casserole. A casserole here has either a thick sauce or no sauce at all.
Casseroles in my experience (mostly Midwestern United States) are non-liquid able-to-be a-full-meal mixtures that work well for church or family potlucks. They are also the short of thing you give new parents or the newly bereaved to freeze and eat later. They are normally more solid than stews.
Midwesterners also think that snickers bars are a salad ingredient 😉
I don't think baked breakfasts are that weird, I know a lot of people who do baked oatmeal for breakfast. And if you have a toaster oven or what we would call a mini oven in the UK (or an oven type air fryer) it doesn't take any longer than using the stovetop.
My hypothesis is that in the US a portable oven in the form of a dutch oven was necessary for a longer time than in the UK. I also wonder if the Enclosure Act made outdoor cooking less possible in the UK - obviously vagrants etc would still have to do it but once a small number of landowners owned most of the countryside you couldn't openly have a hunting party (as in hunting for food) with cooking at a base camp as they might do elsewhere in Europe, which then got taken by migrants from eg Germany and Central Europe to the US.
Descending order of runniness is soup, stew, casserole, bake - where the last has either a thick sauce or none at all.
“Bake” is not used in this sense in my part of the US. For example, my impression is that folks in the UK might speak of a “pasta bake,” while we’d speak of, say, “baked spaghetti” or”baked ziti,” either of which would qualify as a casserole. A casserole here has either a thick sauce or no sauce at all.
Yes, I think classifying pasta dishes as a casserole is a real head-scratcher for most people here. Something like hotdish that's closer to a pot pie, it's not what we would call a casserole but it's conceptually much closer. I think perhaps also US church potluck culture has influenced it there because it's not a thing in the same way here. Church bring and share meals are a thing here, but are usually cold buffets followed by cake and/or cold desserts. Hot meals served at church, in my experience, are made at church in the church hall kitchen. Possibly car culture in the US makes it easier to keep hot dishes warm between home and church?
No sauce and oven-cooked would be a roast surely? Even a braise, which is drier than a casserole (in my scale) has to have some liquid - and a low to moderate temperature and a tight seal so it doesn't evaporate.
Casseroles are always wet. In fact, very often their main point is the simmered-for-hours gravy.
I'm starting to feel hungry now. Tonight will be duck - so that'll be start in a cold pan, render fat, finish in oven. Use duck-fatty pan to make sauce (chilli, ginger, lemongrass, star anise, garlic and orange juice). Stir fry veg and noodles - which I admit I don't do in the proper hot wok fashion. They get something between a fry and a steam.
I don't think baked breakfasts are that weird, I know a lot of people who do baked oatmeal for breakfast.
Baked oatmeal?! Do you mean roasted oats, or porridge baked in the oven? I've never heard of anyone doing either.
Sorry, forgive the American use of 'oatmeal' to mean porridge*! Yes, it's baked porridge. It's quite popular on some weight loss diets as it can be used either as a breakfast or a dessert depending on what you serve it with. It ends up sort of like a soft oaty cake (you grind the porridge oats up more finely and add an egg, plus sugar or sweetener and any flavouring).
*For the Americans - 'porridge' here means oat porridge by default, 'oatmeal' refers to ground oats of varying coarseness used to make it. Though nowadays rolled or jumbo oats are more common than oatmeal for making porridge. Confusingly what Americans call steel cut oats is just pinhead oatmeal in the UK.
I have never understood the British fascination with cereal and especially porridge for breakfast. There are so many more much nicer ways to start the day.
Descending order of runniness is soup, stew, casserole, bake - where the last has either a thick sauce or none at all.
“Bake” is not used in this sense in my part of the US. For example, my impression is that folks in the UK might speak of a “pasta bake,” while we’d speak of, say, “baked spaghetti” or”baked ziti,” either of which would qualify as a casserole. A casserole here has either a thick sauce or no sauce at all.
Yes, I think classifying pasta dishes as a casserole is a real head-scratcher for most people here.
Which mirrors the scratching of heads on this side of The Pond at equating casseroles and stews.
And so a tuna casserole in the US turns out not to be a fish stew but a pasta bake.
Except the egg noodles in a tuna casserole would generally not be considered “pasta,” at least in my experience.
I think perhaps also US church potluck culture has influenced it there because it's not a thing in the same way here. Church bring and share meals are a thing here, but are usually cold buffets followed by cake and/or cold desserts. Hot meals served at church, in my experience, are made at church in the church hall kitchen. Possibly car culture in the US makes it easier to keep hot dishes warm between home and church?
That could be part of it, but not all. In my experience, most churches have kitchens with ovens—often more than one oven. So it’s quite possible to bring the casserole to church, leave it in the kitchen in a warm oven during the service and then pull it out afterward.
Also insulated carrying cases with heat packs for transporting casseroles are a thing here.
Not necessarily. What distinguishes a casserole here is that it is a mix of foods—often but not always including a protein—that is held together by some sort of binder. That binder often is a sauce, but it could be something else, like egg, as in a typical breakfast casserole. My wife makes a good sausage casserole where rice acts as the binder, similar to jambalaya. All the liquid is absorbed by the rice or cooks off.
I have never understood the British fascination with cereal and especially porridge for breakfast. There are so many more much nicer ways to start the day.
But Americans invented breakfast cereal! You can't pin this one on us, sorry 😁
I will say that I am pretty familiar with American casseroles as a concept via discovering the Cooking community on Livejournal in the mid-00s (and being very confused by some of the recipes) and they usually sound tasty, even ones using canned soup as long as that's not the only seasoning. It's just the categorisation.
And so a tuna casserole in the US turns out not to be a fish stew but a pasta bake.
Except the egg noodles in a tuna casserole would generally not be considered “pasta,” at least in my experience.
What are they then?
Noodles/egg noodles. “Pasta” is used here (in my experience) to refer exclusively to Italian forms of noodles traditionally made from semolina—spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, ziti, etc. I’ve occasionally encountered spaghetti in a tuna casserole, but usually it’s broader, ribbon-like egg noodles, maybe (I’m guessing) more rooted in German cooking.
To me, Ariel's "breakfast casserole", and what Nick described, are both very much like Strata - split, toasted muffins* layered in a baking dish with bacon and cheese then a mixture of eggs, milk, Dijon mustard and a dash of Tabasco poured over and chilled in the fridge overnight then baked for an hour and a half in the morning.
You certainly wouldn't need to be in a hurry, but it would probably work for a relaxed weekend brunch.
* the sort Canadians call "English muffins" - not the kind that have blueberries or chocolate chips!
To me, Ariel's "breakfast casserole", and what Nick described, are both very much like Strata - split, toasted muffins* layered in a baking dish with bacon and cheese then a mixture of eggs, milk, Dijon mustard and a dash of Tabasco poured over and chilled in the fridge overnight then baked for an hour and a half in the morning.
Yes, Wikipedia actually says “Strata is a family of layered casserole dishes in American cuisine.” A strata is perhaps the quintessential breakfast casserole.
I have never understood the British fascination with cereal and especially porridge for breakfast. There are so many more much nicer ways to start the day.
But Americans invented breakfast cereal! You can't pin this one on us, sorry 😁
How it became popular (anywhere) is a mystery. But so it is. There are entire aisles of breakfast cereals in supermarkets. I can't immediately think of any other food that by convention is earmarked for one particular meal only.
I have never understood the British fascination with cereal and especially porridge for breakfast. There are so many more much nicer ways to start the day.
But Americans invented breakfast cereal! You can't pin this one on us, sorry 😁
How it became popular (anywhere) is a mystery. But so it is. There are entire aisles of breakfast cereals in supermarkets. I can't immediately think of any other food that by convention is earmarked for one particular meal only.
Well, we know why Battle Creek Sanatorium promoted cornflakes at least. But also, some tasty crunchy cereal with very very cold milk is delicious especially on a hot day when you need something cold. Ideally the milk will be defrosted from out of the freezer but still have some icy shards in there.
@Nick Tamen I don't think I've ever seen tuna pasta bake or any pasta bake use long ribbon pasta, unless you count lasagne. Penne, fusilli (I think you call this rotini), rigatoni, or other shortish tube-ish pasta shapes are used. The idea of baking long pasta is a bit strange to me! In the tuna pasta bake ready meals I see in supermarkets, they're usually using medium sized shells. But also the 'standard' tuna pasta bake here usually tastes quite different anyway.
@Pomona, I’m talking about the tuna casserole I remember from childhood, when pasta shells were unknown, as indeed was just about any other variety of pasta other than spaghetti and macaroni. The standard noodle for anything other than spaghetti or macaroni and cheese (which is always baked like a casserole) or macaroni salad—from tuna casserole to beef stroganoff—was an egg noodle like these. (Though no one I knew made them from scratch. Every grocery store had them.) It’s not necessarily a very long noodle.
Well, we know why Battle Creek Sanatorium promoted cornflakes at least. But also, some tasty crunchy cereal with very very cold milk is delicious especially on a hot day when you need something cold. Ideally the milk will be defrosted from out of the freezer but still have some icy shards in there.
YMMV. There are at least three definite "no thank you" factors in that for me, particularly milk, but thanks for the explanation.
The standard noodle for anything other than spaghetti or macaroni and cheese (which is always baked like a casserole) or macaroni salad—from tuna casserole to beef stroganoff—
Ah yes. Beef stroganoff is almost always with rice over here.
It's as well to know about the differences, especially for anyone with dietary requirements who might be travelling.
And so a tuna casserole in the US turns out not to be a fish stew but a pasta bake.
Except the egg noodles in a tuna casserole would generally not be considered “pasta,” at least in my experience.
What are they then?
I suppose we don't usually think of Chinese egg noodles as pasta, but they involve wheat and eggs in the same way as spaghetti.
We think of pasta as Italian cookery only, with others being described as noodles, ramen and so forth.
Pastichio is surely quite common in Australia surely, with the huge Greek community? Greek food uses pasta quite a bit.
I think the American use of noodles with things others might serve with rice is a German thing, viz spätzle. A huge amount of the US is of German ancestry and German food was very influential on American foodways, even BBQ.
You seem to have missed my amendment so that the post now reads "pastichio as a word".
Mezze plates, souvlaki and so forth are the common range of dishes..
Comments
I don't think there'd be much difference between the space needed for a couple of 240g cans and a packet of the dried beans. You're right about the overnight soaking, very difficult in the days when we were working.
I think a pressure cooker would be a bit beyond my budget at the moment, but am quite happy with soaking.
Today the temperature is forecast to reach 22c and Metservice are warning it could be the last of summery weather so it's a good day to explore the local wholefood shops. YaY for free buses for people over 65.
If you have local charity shops/thrift stores (not sure if the Salvos and their stores are as big in NZ as they are in Aus) that accept small electrical appliances, they are a good place to see if anyone has donated an Instant Pot or another electric pressure cooker. I think the stovetop kind get donated quite a lot (and IKEA sells them cheaply) but they're far too scary in my opinion!
"Casserole" IME is interchangeable with "stew" and not something you'd normally have for breakfast but ok. But how it got from a stew to a traybake that's cut into squares I have no idea. And am now not sure what to expect any more if someone mentions a "casserole".
@Ariel this is a Pond Difference as far as I can tell. American casseroles tend to be something cooked in a casserole dish, often something like what would be called a pasta bake in the UK.
If you cooked a stew in a casserole dish in the oven, would you still call it a stew?
ISTM you're correct that a Pond Difference is at work here. North Americans would be unlikely, IME, to call a heavy enameled pot a casserole... more likely to call it a Dutch oven. What people here would call a casserole dish here is usually made of ceramic or glass, and a good deal more shallow than a Dutch oven.
I would be surprised if someone here cooked a stew in (what I would call) a casserole dish in the oven, as the vessel I'm thinking of would not be deep enough nor hold enough liquid for a stew. It might be covered and called a braise though.
Stew and casserole, as used where I am, are very different dishes.
Yes, a casserole dish is usually just a few inches deep.
I think y’all are right that a Pond Difference is at work.
Traybake in the UK usually refers to something akin to what North Americans call bars (like lemon bars) or sheet cake - a type of cake you bake to cut up into squares or slices like brownies, often to be sold at school bake sales and the like. It can be a cake or more like a pastry, like caramel slices (nowadays called millionaire's shortbread but was always a caramel slice when I was a kid).
Confusingly it also now seems to mean a dish made up of meat and vegetables baked as a sort of one pot meal on a tray, but a dry roasted type rather than a stew.
If you put a stew in a dutch oven and then cooked it in the oven, would it still be a stew?
In the UK cooking stews and braised dishes in the oven came about from taking such dishes to be cooked in the local baker's oven, akin to other European dishes such as Eintopf. Using the residual heat from an oven used for baking was often more economical than cooking on a stovetop, even once domestic ranges became more common.
In my experience both the shallow and deep/heavy dishes are called casserole dishes here, we would just distinguish between them based on size or whether they were 'flameproof' ie could also be used on top of the stove as well as in the oven. Ceramic/stoneware ones as big as the dutch oven type but which can only be used in the oven are reasonably common as well as the shallower ceramic or Pyrex type (Pyrex in the UK uses the old borosilicate glass formula). The cast iron type is much less common and we also don't have much of a history of using cast iron pots once domestic ranges became a thing. The range was used for heating and hot water as well as cooking, and cooking outdoors in post-Georgian times has historically been fueled by spirit or paraffin lamps rather than a campfire for weather reasons. So the dutch oven as Americans know them is not a very British thing - enameled cast iron is more common via Le Creuset, but stoneware for using in the oven or a normal stockpot for using on the stove is cheaper to produce and much more normal.
Anyway the BBC'S cookery section has produced this which is what prompted my post.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/breakfast-casserole
Having looked for recipes I came to the conclusion that the nearest dish in my repertoire is a frittata (or Spanish omelette with much more than the traditional onions & potato added to the mix).
Normally I cook mine on the stove top in a shallow gratin dish, but on the odd occasion when feeding more than the two of us I have baked the same recipe in the oven, which is what I thought the breakfast casserole most resembled.
To me, grilling was applying heat from above. Cookers came with 'eye-level' grills, and subsequently grills integral to the oven (bad ideas both of them).
Broiling I long thought was a version of boiling.
Griddling to me is cooking on a ridged pan/surface, frying is cooking in a flat, greased pan, and barbecuing is on bars over coals or flame.
Roasting is in an oven.
Braising can be either oven or stovetop but implies a closed vessel and liquid.
Sous vide I don't even want to know about.
Never, in this corner of the world, does one “barbecue” hamburgers, nor is what hamburgers are cooked on outdoors called a “barbecue.” Barbecuing (as used here) is slow cooking over low, indirect heat, generally with smoke used to impart flavor. “Barbecue,” as a noun without any qualification, is pork—either the whole pig or a pork shoulder—cooked in this manner. (In other places, “barbecue” as a noun may typically refer to beef that has been barbecued.)
Most breakfast casseroles I’ve encountered are made the day/night before left to sit in the fridge overnight, and then cooked in the morning.. At least at our house, they’re the sort of thing we might make for a special occasion, like a holiday breakfast, or when we have overnight guests.
Midwesterners also think that snickers bars are a salad ingredient 😉
I don't think baked breakfasts are that weird, I know a lot of people who do baked oatmeal for breakfast. And if you have a toaster oven or what we would call a mini oven in the UK (or an oven type air fryer) it doesn't take any longer than using the stovetop.
My hypothesis is that in the US a portable oven in the form of a dutch oven was necessary for a longer time than in the UK. I also wonder if the Enclosure Act made outdoor cooking less possible in the UK - obviously vagrants etc would still have to do it but once a small number of landowners owned most of the countryside you couldn't openly have a hunting party (as in hunting for food) with cooking at a base camp as they might do elsewhere in Europe, which then got taken by migrants from eg Germany and Central Europe to the US.
Yes, I think classifying pasta dishes as a casserole is a real head-scratcher for most people here. Something like hotdish that's closer to a pot pie, it's not what we would call a casserole but it's conceptually much closer. I think perhaps also US church potluck culture has influenced it there because it's not a thing in the same way here. Church bring and share meals are a thing here, but are usually cold buffets followed by cake and/or cold desserts. Hot meals served at church, in my experience, are made at church in the church hall kitchen. Possibly car culture in the US makes it easier to keep hot dishes warm between home and church?
Casseroles are always wet. In fact, very often their main point is the simmered-for-hours gravy.
I'm starting to feel hungry now. Tonight will be duck - so that'll be start in a cold pan, render fat, finish in oven. Use duck-fatty pan to make sauce (chilli, ginger, lemongrass, star anise, garlic and orange juice). Stir fry veg and noodles - which I admit I don't do in the proper hot wok fashion. They get something between a fry and a steam.
Baked oatmeal?! Do you mean roasted oats, or porridge baked in the oven? I've never heard of anyone doing either.
Sorry, forgive the American use of 'oatmeal' to mean porridge*! Yes, it's baked porridge. It's quite popular on some weight loss diets as it can be used either as a breakfast or a dessert depending on what you serve it with. It ends up sort of like a soft oaty cake (you grind the porridge oats up more finely and add an egg, plus sugar or sweetener and any flavouring).
*For the Americans - 'porridge' here means oat porridge by default, 'oatmeal' refers to ground oats of varying coarseness used to make it. Though nowadays rolled or jumbo oats are more common than oatmeal for making porridge. Confusingly what Americans call steel cut oats is just pinhead oatmeal in the UK.
Except the egg noodles in a tuna casserole would generally not be considered “pasta,” at least in my experience.
That could be part of it, but not all. In my experience, most churches have kitchens with ovens—often more than one oven. So it’s quite possible to bring the casserole to church, leave it in the kitchen in a warm oven during the service and then pull it out afterward.
Also insulated carrying cases with heat packs for transporting casseroles are a thing here.
Not necessarily. What distinguishes a casserole here is that it is a mix of foods—often but not always including a protein—that is held together by some sort of binder. That binder often is a sauce, but it could be something else, like egg, as in a typical breakfast casserole. My wife makes a good sausage casserole where rice acts as the binder, similar to jambalaya. All the liquid is absorbed by the rice or cooks off.
But Americans invented breakfast cereal! You can't pin this one on us, sorry 😁
I suppose we don't usually think of Chinese egg noodles as pasta, but they involve wheat and eggs in the same way as spaghetti.
You certainly wouldn't need to be in a hurry, but it would probably work for a relaxed weekend brunch.
* the sort Canadians call "English muffins" - not the kind that have blueberries or chocolate chips!
How it became popular (anywhere) is a mystery. But so it is. There are entire aisles of breakfast cereals in supermarkets. I can't immediately think of any other food that by convention is earmarked for one particular meal only.
Well, we know why Battle Creek Sanatorium promoted cornflakes at least. But also, some tasty crunchy cereal with very very cold milk is delicious especially on a hot day when you need something cold. Ideally the milk will be defrosted from out of the freezer but still have some icy shards in there.
Shells are a recent innovation.
We think of pasta as Italian cookery only, with others being described as noodles, ramen and so forth.
YMMV. There are at least three definite "no thank you" factors in that for me, particularly milk, but thanks for the explanation.
Ah yes. Beef stroganoff is almost always with rice over here.
It's as well to know about the differences, especially for anyone with dietary requirements who might be travelling.
Pastichio is surely quite common in Australia surely, with the huge Greek community? Greek food uses pasta quite a bit.
I think the American use of noodles with things others might serve with rice is a German thing, viz spätzle. A huge amount of the US is of German ancestry and German food was very influential on American foodways, even BBQ.
Pastichio as a word is very rarely used.
Now that is surprising. What are the usual Greek dishes served in Australia then?
Mezze plates, souvlaki and so forth are the common range of dishes..
Sorry, that was part of "and so forth". Many people would cook it at home