Snacking State-by-State Mashup 6: Surf and Turf Hotdish

The "hotdish" is better known outside of the Upper Midwest as the "casserole".  At least, that's the closest analogy I can make here in the Mid-Atlantic.  An excellent way to use up leftovers, Midwest Living has a bevy of "hotdish and casserole" recipes on its website.  Since this mashup is all about using up leftovers, and since I didn't really get to explore the hotdish for Minnesota, a hotdish sounded like a good idea.  Just don't throw everything into it all at once, like I did with my hotdish that was part Upper Midwest, part New England and part Chesapeake Bay.

The mashup recipe: Surf and Turf Hotdish

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients (state flag indicates State-by-State post where ingredient was featured. Ingredients with no flag were not specifically used for any one post.)

Hotdish:

1/2 lb beef, cubed

1/2 lb ground pork

1 cup wild rice

5 to 6 clams (or 1/2 can baby clams) chopped

1/2 cup blue crab meat (or 1/2 small or 1 large crab cake - in this case, uncooked)

1 to 2 small potatoes, cubed

1 to 2 carrots, sliced

1 onion, sliced or chopped

1/4 cup tomato paste (or more to your liking)

generous dash (or more) Old Bay

generous dash (or more) Tabasco sauce


generous dash (or more) Worcestershire sauce

Topping:


4 slices bread (or in this case, 2 slices bread plus......

1 hot dog roll)

1 small bunch fresh dill, stems removed

1/4 cup roasted peanuts, salted or unsalted


1 small bunch fresh parsley, stems removed

butter

Note: even though they appear in the photo, I ended up not using the morel mushrooms or heavy whipping cream.  I will save those for something else.

Mix your ingredients in a bowl.  No, I did not.  In retrospect I'm not sure why exactly, but I just didn't.  It will all mix together better if you do that.  That said, at least this way you can see what to add.  It doesn't really matter what order you add your ingredients.  But I started with the onion.

Then the ground pork.

I continued with the cubed beef...

And then the potatoes and carrots.

Then I added the crab cake (broken up) and clams.

Mix in the tomato paste.  No, I did not do that.  I was lazy.  Don't be lazy like I was.

Also add the wild rice.

And finally the condiments - the Worcestershire, the Old Bay, the Tabasco.

For your topping, throw fresh bread (and hot dog roll) in to the food processor with the peanuts and herbs.

Process until ground up into coarse crumbs.

Top the hotdish with the crumbs.

And dot with pieces of butter.

Bake in a 350°F oven for an hour (most hotdish recipes I saw called for that time and temperature.

This was a filling, hearty and I dare say slightly bland dish.  With every bite, I should have tasted pork and beef and crab and clam, instead of pork or beef or crab or clam.  My two mistakes in this dish were as follows: 1) mix the hotdish filling in a bowl instead of layering the ingredients in your casserole dish like I did - it will all mesh better together that way; 2) more Worcestershire sauce, more Old Bay and more Tabasco sauce!  Again, a little on the bland side.  But these Midwesterners sure know how to use up a bunch of leftovers with this "hotdish" recipe, that's for sure!  And I didn't even need any tater tots (which seems to be a popular filling for these type of dishes) - even Midwestern Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has her favorite recipe.