I hope you enjoy this issue of Between the Layers! Share it with your friends. A Southern Tribute to Minnesota Hotdish - No. 378With crispy Tater Tots on top, it’s comfy soul food for an icy, turbulent time
SINCE WE ARE FOOD-LOVING PEOPLE here at Between the Layers, I’ll share a recent Threads comment from bestselling cookbook author Sarah Keifer. She’s the one who created the viral pan-banging chocolate chip cookie recipe. And she’s also a Minneapolis resident who posted that she finds it hard to write about recipes when her town feels like a war zone. It reminds me of how after Nashville’s March 2023 Covenant School shootings, I couldn’t write about strawberry cake and instead told you what was in my heart at that moment. I lost paid subscribers being vocal about the tragedy and gun laws, but we writers know speaking up comes with a cost. Sarah felt Minneapolis isn’t being supported by the rest of the country and said, “People don’t want to think about what doesn’t affect them.” At the time, I knew she was right.
And I still know she’s right, even after an ice storm slammed into my town 10 days ago. From the dangling power lines and trees snapped in half like pencils, Nashville looks like a war zone, too. I am still without power. Hundreds of thousands of people in middle Tennessee lost power due to a combination of unprecedented weather—the perfect storm, exponential growth of Nashville as the “it” city, and what feels like ill preparedness on the part of our local utility, Nashville Electric Service (NES). All I can think about right now is that I am cold. I am uncomfortable. I am hopeful NES will fix my busted transformer soon. But if you weren’t in the path of this storm, you probably don’t stress about it. So my reply to Sarah is two-fold:
Without power, I remain horrified at the brutal, unlawful murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. That will not go away. I am grateful five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father have been released from ICE custody. I am in awe of how in spite of freezing weather and the risk involved with protesting, Minneapolis has shown up to support its neighbors. I am incensed at the arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort while they were following the news. But this past week we have experienced beauty as well—frozen landscapes that glitter like diamonds, breathtaking sunsets emitting warming rays in our direction, and generosity of spirit. We have had many people open their warm homes and hearts to us, and that comforts us more than you can know. We can’t open up our homes to the people of Minnesota, but we can open up our hearts. So today I honor the North Star State in a way its people might appreciate. I cooked a variation of their beloved recipe—the hotdish—in my gas grill in sub-freezing temps.
The soul food of the NorthPre-storm, I had purchased the ingredients for a proper “hotdish”—spelled as one word and often as two. It’s the hearty Upper Midwestern version of what the rest of the Midwest, South, and East call a “casserole.” (Not sure about the West, so please weigh in.) They are one and the same, both layered, both feeding a crowd, but they couldn’t be more different. Hotdish is about tradition and change. From what I researched, there are as many hotdish variations as there are people in Minnesota. Some involve tuna, others chicken or sauerkraut, some just baked beans, and the one I explored is so beloved it has its own acronym—TTHD—the Tater Tot Hotdish.
After the power outage, I prepped the recipe with daylight, simmering the meat sauce and creamy cheese sauce on top of the kitchen gas stove I lit manually. Then I layered the meat sauce, frozen peas, cheese sauce, and tots in a grill-friendly Lodge cast-iron casserole pan. (To be safe, I placed that pan atop a cast-iron griddle so the underside wouldn’t burn. Heat from a covered grill comes from the bottom only compared to a conventional oven baking on top and below.) Hotdish or casserole?
Myself layered up, too, in snow boots, heavy coat, and wool cap, I stayed at the grill most of the hour-plus needed to bake the pan consistently at 350ºF (a little tricky when it’s cold outside. Your inside oven keeps a more constant temp!). And you know, it was a beautiful, bubbling, hot, cheesy sight to behold. Patrice Johnson, a Minneapolis tv personality, cookbook author and teacher of Nordic cooking classes in the Twin Cities, has written about the humble hotdish in The Minneapolis Star Tribune. A hotdish recipe, she says, is a window into someone’s soul—the soul food of the North.
Not long after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was announced as Kamala Harris’s running mate for the 2024 Presidential election, the world was introduced to hotdish. Walz had won the Minnesota Congressional Delegation’s Hotdish Competition in Washington, DC in 2013, 2014, and 2016 for his Hermann the German Hotdish, Turkey Trot Tater-Tot Hotdish, and Tim’s Turkey Taco. Patrice judged that competition in 2019 and noticed that in spite of a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and racist rhetoric across the country at the time, the hotdish entries embodied the immigrant story. The winning hotdishes were Hmong and Liberian-inspired recipes. Patrice says Hmong hotdish recipes have become economical ways to feed a family of 10 with just one pound of meat.
Food is the equalizerBaking hotdish let me to forget discomfort and marvel in a new recipe. It’s good solid food and welcome on a cold evening. I put my own spin on the recipe, making a jazzed-up red sauce with ground turkey, a from-scratch cheese sauce with the block of cheddar I needed to use, what was left of my frozen peas, and all but nine Tater Tots from a two-pound bag. Eating hot bowlfuls in front of the fireplace was a kind of empathic experience that should be basic training for ICE, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, and all of the White House. I hope Minneapolis knows that even though we can’t join them in person, we admire their strength. We can make their recipe and open up our hearts. Enjoy the hotdish and keep warm, - xo, Anne P.S. Many thanks to Between the Layers paid subscriber Karen S of Minneapolis for help with this post!
THE RECIPE: Minnesota Hotdish from a Southern KitchenTo come up with this cozy-as-a-sweater recipe, I researched hotdish recipes. While many of the gooey, creamy sort of recipes called for a can of cream of mushroom soup—and I was raised on the stuff so am not going to be a canned soup snob—I wanted the sauce from scratch. So I read Molly Yeh’s post about hotdish and scanned her recipe. What I liked was the homemade sauce and the use of frozen peas, but it looked too meaty and bland. We like a bit of spice in the South. We were raised on homemade creamy sauces and gravies and know how to pull them together and season for the occasion. The fresh nutmeg added just the right touch. This essentially was the sauce my mom made to pour over freshly steamed cauliflower. The layering of Tater Tots was so fun. A two-pound bag was perfect to top a big 13-by 9-inch pan of hotdish. This feeds eight really hungry people at dinner or 12 at a potluck. It’s an adaptable sort of recipe—you can use the ground turkey or opt for beef or go meatless, which would be fabulous. Substitute 1 pound of Baby Bella mushrooms, chopped as if to resemble the ground turkey. With the frozen peas in the casserole, you’ve covered the bases, but if you want to round out the meal, I’d suggest a green salad. Or Jell-O, which would be very Minnesotan. Makes 8 to 12 servings (or cut the recipe in half and assemble in a 2-quart baking pan)
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