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One-Dish Luncheon
1 box spaghetti 1 can tomatoes 1 lb. hamburger 1 small onion Butter Cook spaghetti in salted water until tender. Put into greased casserole a layer of spaghetti, a layer of hamburger, a layer of tomatoes, etc. Use onion with hamburger. Cheese may be used on top. Bake about one hour.
Ruby Gorsline.
A church-supper casserole written in shorthand for cooks who already knew what it should look like. The gaps worth filling are the pan size, the oven temperature and the fact that the beef goes in raw.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable reading, and an hour at that heat suits a filled 2- to 3-quart dish.
- "Casserole" hereIn American usage of this period the word generally meant the baking dish itself rather than the older stovetop pan. A 9x13 baking dish or a 3-quart covered casserole both work.
- A box of spaghettiBoxes of this era were often 8 oz rather than today's 16 oz, though pound packages existed too. Use 8 oz for a balanced dish; a full pound to one can of tomatoes will bake dry.
- A can of tomatoesPeriod cans varied, and a No. 2 can of about 20 oz was common; a modern 14.5- to 16-oz can of whole or diced tomatoes with their juice will do. Break the whole ones up with a spoon as you layer, or the top slices steam rather than cook down.
- The raw beefThe hamburger is layered in uncooked and relies on the full hour to cook through. Browning it with the onion first is better practice: it renders fat you can pour off, it builds flavor the oven will not, and it removes any doubt about the center of the dish reaching 160F.
- Undercook the pasta"Until tender" was standard advice then, but spaghetti that goes into the dish fully cooked comes out of an hour's bake soft. Drain it a couple of minutes short.
- SeasoningThe list stops at butter and onion. Salt, pepper and a bay leaf or a pinch of dried oregano in the tomatoes are worth adding.
- Cheese and coverIf you use the optional cheese, add it for the last 15 to 20 minutes so it browns without hardening. Cover the dish for the first 40 minutes to keep the top layer of pasta from drying out.
- YieldSix generous servings, or eight as part of a larger spread.
Layered spaghetti-and-hamburger bakes spread through American community cookbooks in the first half of the twentieth century, carried by three things arriving in the same pantry: cheap boxed dried pasta, canned tomatoes, and ground beef sold ready-ground at the butcher counter. The dish is only loosely Italian; it is the American casserole grammar of layer, cover, bake applied to ingredients that had recently become ordinary. A congregational cookbook of this sort collected exactly this kind of recipe, contributed under a member's own name, because it fed a crowd from one pan.