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Spanish Casserole
2 pounds round steak cut in good sized cubes 2 onions, sliced 1 clove garlic, minced 2 green peppers, shredded 3 cups canned tomato or 2 pounds fresh tomatoes 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 2 tablespoons Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch 1 tablespoon Karo, Blue Label 2 tablespoons Mazola 1/2 cup sliced, stuffed olives 2 or 3 tablespoons grape juice (optional) Pour the Mazola in a frying pan, add the garlic, onions and peppers. Heat and add the meat rolled in the cornstarch. Pour in the Karo and tomatoes, add salt and pepper and the grape juice. Transfer to a casserole, cover and bake two hours in a moderate oven, add the olives and serve with mashed potato. Karo Materials and utensils for making Spanish Casserole
A corn-products promotional recipe that is really a tomato braise of round steak. It works as written; most of what needs translating is brand names and the oven.
- Moderate oven350F. Two hours covered at that temperature is about right for cubed round steak, which is lean and full of connective tissue and needs the long, wet heat to turn tender.
- The casseroleHere it means a lidded ovenproof pot, not a shallow baking dish. A Dutch oven is the direct equivalent, and you can brown in it and skip the transfer from the frying pan.
- Argo or Kingsford's cornstarchPlain cornstarch. The two tablespoons are a dredge for the meat, not a slurry, so toss the cubes in it just before they hit the hot oil and let them take some colour.
- Karo Blue LabelThe mild light corn syrup of the period. One tablespoon of any light corn syrup does the job; it is there to round the acidity of the tomatoes, and a teaspoon of sugar covers the same ground.
- MazolaCorn oil, then as now. Any neutral oil works.
- Canned tomatoThree cups is about 24 ounces with the juice, a little less than a standard 28-ounce can; drain off the excess or use it all and cook down. If you use the two pounds of fresh tomatoes, expect a thinner sauce and a longer uncovered finish to concentrate it.
- Olives at the endThe recipe stirs the stuffed olives in only after the two hours in the oven, which keeps their flavour and texture distinct from the sauce.
- The grape juiceAn optional acid-and-sweetness note, and a plausible stand-in for red wine. Two or three tablespoons of red wine does the same work if you would rather.
- YieldTwo pounds of steak should stretch to four to six servings with the mashed potato the recipe calls for.
This comes from one of the cookbooks issued by the Corn Products Refining Company to promote Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, Karo syrup and Mazola oil, which is why all three appear in a single beef braise and why the ingredient list reads like a shopping list with brand names attached. "Spanish" in American cookbooks of this period was less a claim of origin than a shorthand for the combination of tomato, onion, green pepper and olive, the same logic that produced Spanish rice and Spanish omelet. The page also shows the word "casserole" doing two jobs at once: the method uses it for the covered pot, while the title uses it for the dish cooked in it. The optional grape juice may stand in for the wine a European version of this braise would have taken for granted.