Casserole Sydney
Casserole Sydney
Yield 8
Prep time
30 MinCook time
1 H & 30 MTotal time
2 HourI am a fan of the Girls Play channel on YouTube. I asked if any of the girls wanted a custom recipe developed for them and Sydney jumped at the chance. She loves potatoes, ground meats, casseroles, and shepherd's pie. This recipe is a love note to all of those things.
Ingredients
- 5 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes
- 1 lb frozen peas
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Filling
- 2 lbs 85/15 ground turkey
- 6 oz shallots
- 1 large carrot
- 1 large rib of celery
- 2 tbsp neutral oil
- 1 10.5 oz can of Cream of Mushroom Soup with Roasted Garlic
- 2 tsp Morton's Kosher Coarse Salt, adjust to taste
- fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
Mash
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 2 tsp Morton's Kosher Course Salt, adjust to taste
Optional
- 2 lemons
- 1 bunch Italian parsley
- 2 clove garlic
- extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
Potatoes
- Wash, peel, and rinse your potatoes.
- Slice roughly 1/3 of the potatoes into 1/8 inch rounds using a mandoline or very sharp knife. You will need enough slices to cover 2 8"x8" casserole dishes twice (two layers of slightly overlapping slices). Cover and set aside the potato slices.
- Cut the remaining potatoes into large equal sized chunks and place them into a large pot with enough water to cover them.
- Salt the water and place the pot over high heat to bring it to a boil.
- Move on to the filling while waiting for the water to boil. Check potatoes occasionally for doneness. We are looking for fully cooked tender potatoes.
Filling
- Halve and peel 6 ounces of shallots. Slice into 1/8" half moons. Grate 1 large carrot on the coarse holes (1/4" holes). Finely chop 1 large celery stalk.
- Add 2 tbsp of neutral oil to a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Once the oil begins to shimmer add in your shallots, carrot, celery, black pepper to taste, and 2 tsp of salt.
- Sautee while stirring often until tender and beginning to take on some color.
- Add in the ground turkey and continue cooking until cooked through and most of the moisture has been cooked out of the pan.
- Remove from heat and mix in 1 can of cream of mushroom soup. Taste and adjust salt if necessary. Set aside for later.
Mash
- Once the boiled potatoes are fully tender, drain and return to the pot.
- Mash the potatoes with a masher, ricer, or any other method that works for you.
- Add butter, 2 tsp salt, and 1 cup sour cream to the mash and mix in well. I prefer an electric hand mixer for this step but do what works for you.
- Taste and adjust salt if necessary.
Assembly
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- In two 8x8 casserole dishes drizzle in enough extra virgin olive oil to coat the bottom of the dishes.
- Lay in potato slices to create a single layer of slightly overlapping potatoes. Crack black pepper over the layer of potatoes.
- Spoon 1/4 of your mixture into each dish and gently smooth it out into an even layer.
- In one of the dishes, sprinkle a layer of frozen peas to cover the filling fully. Smooth out.
- Repeat the potato, filling, and peas layers 1 more time.
- Dollop the mashed potato over the surface of the casseroles. Carefully smooth the mash with a spatula or other appropriate device.
- With a fork drag lines into the surface of the mash to create texture. This will give nice crispy bits when the dish is finished.
- Place both casseroles on a large baking sheet (to catch any bubble over) and place them into the upper third of the oven.
- Bake time will be roughly 1 hour but start checking doneness at 40 minutes. The primary indicator of doneness on this will be the sliced potato layers. You can probe the center of the casserole with a butter knife and once there is little resistance to the knife you can consider the dish fully cooked.
- At this stage set your oven to low broil to finish browning the top. Keep a careful eye on the top while it browns as it is easy to go to far and burn it. Remove from the oven when nicely browned and crispy. A fork dragged across the top should sound scratchy.
- Allow to rest for 30 minutes. Cut into squares and serve.
Optional
- Mince parsley and add to a medium bowl. Add the zest of 2 lemons, juice of 1 lemon, and 2 grated cloves of garlic. Pour in a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and mix well.
- Serve the dish topped with saucy gremolata for a hit of fresh and tangy flavors to balance the deep rich flavors of the casserole. Alternately, serve the sauce on the side.