"one dish meal" news and stories

The promise of a "one dish" meal is that it will be easier to prepare than other meals because the components all cook at the same time. Some books written under this premise don't deliver, but The One-Dish Chicken Cookbook delivers 120 different recipes, utilizing a wide variety of flavors in easy-to-prepare meals. Each recipe could work for a weeknight dinner when you don't have the time or energy to work too hard in the kitchen, but they are also interesting enough that you wouldn't hesitate to serve them to company.

Chicken is an incredibly versatile meat, so it works well in dishes from every part of the world. It transitions smoothly from a very southern Bourbon-Brined Chicken with Cornbread Stuffing to Philippine Chicken Adobo and to African Chicken and Peanut Stew. The book gives some background on each dish and the part of the world that it comes from, but it is a simple book that is easy to work with. The recipes are well presented, so you won't have to second guess anything as you cook, and with so many creative uses to make chicken dinners more extraordinary, it is the kind of book you'll be cooking from for quite some time.

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It is quite untrue to say that no casserole is a good casserole. After all, they have enjoyed fairly consistent popularity over the course of the last century, though the concept has been around much longer. If all casseroles were horrible, we wouldn't still be making them. Recipes for casseroles, however, can be downright scary. A can of sauce, a frozen chunk of miscellaneous meat and less than appetizing vegetables, possibly added to conceal a look of produce past its prime.

What exactly is a casserole?

It is a slowly cooked mixture of a number of foods, often including meats and vegetables. Pies both sweet and savory are the forerunners of the modern casserole. The word casserole comes from a French term meaning "served in the dish used for cooking."  While this does describe the modern casserole, it is much too broad a definition. Today, many meals are served in the same dish they are cooked in, from soups to baked and roasted chicken. To really pinpoint what defines a casserole, a more specific description is needed.

Cakes and other "baked goods" must be excluded, though they can be baked and served from casserole dishes. Cakes and brownies do not maintain the distinction of their various ingredients as they cook; they change to result in a wholly new product.

Dishes like tuna noodle casserole and lasagna are classic and familiar examples of casseroles. They both contain a mixture of ingredients baked together and are served straight out of the baking dish. The ingredients do not meld together in any significant way, remaining mixed, yet separate. Both dishes also hold their shape fairly well when cut, so many think of casseroles as having a high degree of  sliceability.