Alabama Hashbrown Casserole! (Ritz Crackers on Top!)

hey everybody hunter Fisher trapper trader guide scout interpreter and country cook Steve Hall here in Nashville Tennessee along with pretty miss Sheila hi Sheila and today we're going to make Alabama hash brown casserole and the Alabama element is standing behind that camera right there she'll be out here in just a minute and I'll explain that but one of the ingredients is cutting up some onions to go in this and I just want to show you something real quick come on over here now the way all these culinary schools teach you is they want you to cut off this end then they want you to cut it in half but leave the little root end on there then they want you to make a bunch of cuts well first of all we got to peel off the outside which is kind of a pain when you have to go all the way around this onion to get it off of there but anyway doing this quickly because I just want to show you that the difference between what I do and what they do and they leave the little end on there then they make all these little cuts like this and I've got this in another segment but I want to explain it further then they want you to put your fingers on top and cut under here make some cuts and stuff under the of all that and then they chop it off and forget all that it drives me nuts it just drives me absolutely crazy now I have had people post comments that say the reason you leave this wood land on is because it keeps the tears from happening I've been chopping onions up for years of course I always use sweet Vidalia onions or sweet onions and even when I use yellow onions or white onions I got my hand over the top I've never had a problem with that ever but what I do is I cut it off this way cut both ends off cut it in half makes it so much easier to peel the caps off of there when it's in half like that just like that you're already down to this part now they say you can't make a real fine chopped onion unless you do all these other little cuts this way but now remember that onion is being held this way the way they cut it and I turn it this direction which makes all the little bands in the onion lay this direction so the cuts are already there they're just bent I wanted to show this last time and I kind of forgot but so but that they do it like this I turn it like this now we're going to make fine onions for this casserole so I'm going to make little teeny cuts and you notice I cut down away from my hand and the more cuts you make the finer the onion pieces are then all I have to do is cut this direction now remember when I cut this down like this I'm not cutting down a whole big piece all these little teeny pieces are all the layers of the onion so it's like super super super fine you see how easy that is then that is how I make real fine onions I don't have to leave that end cap on if you want to take this and peel it off and cut all the way around and get all the little teeny pieces you can do that as well but I just make my cuts this way straight down I cut off both ends caps and if you want thicker onions obviously you just make your cuts further apart in both directions and there you have super superfine onions but that's how I do that I mean all right I hope you're ready here's the Alabama element of all this miss Sheila from down in Muscle Shoals Alabama her mom lives in Red Bay Alabama she's on one of our other cooking shows and I got to tell you this is their special ingredient to a hash brown casserole and we'll get to that in just a second but first we need to get the main ingredients together we need two pounds of hash browns thawed I took these out of the freezer last night put them in the refrigerator this says 1 pound 14 ounces now that's just 2 ounces short of 2 pounds but I'm not going to buy a whole nother bag to throw a handful in here so that's close enough if the bag you buy at the store says two pounds fine if it says a pound 14 ounces fine just around 2 pounds of these hash browns all thawed ready to go because they're going to incorporate this stuff right here and what we put in this little bowl that I'm going to have Sheila stir up you can start stirring is 1 K and of cream of chicken soup we also put in one little tub here I think this thing is 16 ounces yeah one 16-ounce container a sour cream now some recipes don't use sour cream but I really like it because it makes it nice and smooth we also have in there a half a teaspoon of salt and a half a teaspoon of pepper actually there's one teaspoon of pepper because I like pepper but anyway there's a half a teaspoon of each for the recipe but I put a whole teaspoon in there because I just can't stand it all right and now it's time for our onions that I chopped up so perfect there they are put them in there got a few more little critters floating around let me get in your way there you go that's right you're doing good it's fluffy now we also need 1/2 a cup of butter I actually let me see this butter I could explain this to them I took two sticks of butter and put in here put in the microwave for 1 minute melt that down made one cup each stick makes a half a cup of butter just in case you're whipping up some recipes I need a whole stick a half a stick of butter for this and a half a stick of butter for the Alabama element that's coming up so first I'm going to pour 1/2 a cup of butter on top of these hash browns a little bit more perfect well justice mention all right then I'm going to keep this other 1/2 a cup of butter for what's coming up now are you ready to put that in here and start mixing it around all right dump that in there again we got our 1 can of cream of chicken soup our 1 little tub of sour cream half a cup of butter down in there half a teaspoon of salt and pepper and we're going to mix this all together looking pretty good I'll take that put it over in the dirty dish pile and you can keep right on a stern and incorporate all of that you know I knew there was something I was forgetting and it's the cheese duh now here's the scoop on this there's a couple theories if you want to make the Cracker Barrel hash brown casserole that's floating around Internet use margarine instead of butter use Colby cheese instead of cheddar that kind of thing but what we're doing is this Alabama version so bear with me here almost all recipes either call for a mild cheddar or a sharp cheddar and I was in the store one day and I thought medium cheddar well I'll just put that in every recipe then you can modify it to your taste we need 2 cups of this shredded medium cheddar mixed into our little Bowl here it's turning into a smaller Bowl as we go because we're getting more and more goodies in there all the time so I've got to find a place for this little cup and get it out of the way there we go well you look like you're doing good I'm working on it I need you to do me one more favor let me start stirring that and you grab that 3 quart casserole dish right behind you there I'll take over the stirring duties you've already got this looking really good right now if you'll help me hold this bowl up like this grab a hold the bowl there you go now we're talking teamwork we will dump this in here this is a 3 quart casserole dish there we go you can put that over there somewhere and I'll let you just kind of smash that out but don't smash it down just kind of spread it but don't smash it you don't want to smash it down that's very important so just kind of push it into all the different little corners there you're looking good and you know what here comes the Alabama part down there in red Bay those girls whether they're making a bean casserole or hash brown casserole they all do this Ritz cracker thing all right this looks good let me move this out of your way and I'll let you get that red bowl right there and what I did is I took a cereal bowl and you don't have to take a bag and dump me and roll them out with a rolling pin just take some Ritz crackers put them in a bowl and you just crush them with your hands for about 10 seconds and they look like this we got two cups of Ritz crackers and I might just let you stir with the same little thing here and here's our other half a cup of butter is going to go in these Ritz crackers I know it's go ahead stir that up real good and this is going to go on top of this hash brown casserole because that's the way the girls do it down there in the south down there in Alabama yeah he's showing it to him good job there girl that really looks good we talked to one of her friends who did we talked to this morning my aunt Ally oh yeah Allen hi Allen she said make sure you either put a quarter cup or a little over half half is about the best she says that way it isn't too dry in too wet it's just about perfect and boy you nailed it a half a cup is just perfect are you ready spread it out there let's see how good you do on this now we should be getting a close-up shot of this well the camera girl is here yeah the camera girls over here not out front so it's hard to find good help well that's looking good you can almost do three cups but I think two cups is going to just make it across the fence here you think we're okay with that or do we need one more cup yeah it looks pretty good all right now what we're going to do is we're going to take that aluminum foil on the end of the table there if you'll hand me that we're going to cover this up we're going to bake this at 350 degrees for one hour but we're only going to bake it with the aluminum foil on it for thirty minutes so for the first half hour we want to cover it up so it bakes good and deep in there just like this and then after thirty minutes we're going to take the aluminum foil off and bake it another thirty minutes all at 350 degrees and we're going to show you the finished product from Alabama let me see what was our little thing we do one of Alabama team wins yeah we do the thing yeah huge big Alabama roll tide so well all right girls down Alabama we got your hash brown casserole here with Ritz crackers soaked in butter on top and let's see what they look like after we bake them for one hour 30 minutes with the aluminum foil 30 minutes without and then we'll bring it back show it to you fresh back from the oven 30 minutes with the aluminum foil on 30 minutes off 350 degrees for 1 hour and we let it cool just a little bit it's got a nice little crust on top a little bit of brown around the edge it's not burnt because of that aluminum foil and what I'm going to do is I'm going to kind of separate this almost in servings to start with because me and Sheila are going to have some all that sour cream is coming up on that spatula so nice and then I'm going to take my handy dandy vac master vac machine and I'm going to vacuum seal some of these and put them in the freezer for later but right now I'm going to go ahead and dish these up so you can get a shot of that look at that and that nice Wow just right along that edge one thing I should have said we could have sprayed this pan but believe it or not it's not sticking too bad our little casserole dish we should have probably sprayed it first but that's one of those tips that show up later man there we go does that look fantastic or what let's give this a try with our Alabama Ritz crackers topping on it and see what it's like Sheila come on over here well honey you look just absolutely beautiful thank you by the way she changed blouses because she's going to a special event tonight with her girlfriend Maxine Randolph hi Maxine and I got to tell you this I gotta admit to it we try to fight this before we even turn the camera back on is it great or what Wow that is fabulous and I'll tell you something else we did because we kind of wear our heart on her sleeve here we made this same casserole and it was a recipe where you ground up cornflakes sucked we threw it in the garbage it was terrible had no flavor but this Ritz cracker thing it's like to die for it just changes the whole complexity of this profile of the flavor this is just wonderful so anyway if you want to get a little shotgun read you can get them at shotgun red.com and if you want to subscribe to our channel there's the button right up there and and you can tell them that they can use this Ritz cracker thing on any kind of casserole any kind of casserole like a bean casserole any kind of tuna casserole corn casserole anything put that Ritz crackers two cups with a half a cup of butter mix in it and put it on top man it's absolutely fabulous I kid you not we'll see you next time right here on cooking with shotgun red and Sheila's got to go because she's going to go to a little event I had a lot of fun way or go I'll sit here and watch NHRA drag racing on TV and we'll see you next time okay oh if this is is this the best little graham cracker that graham cracker is this the best little Ritz cracker topping Alabama hash brown casserole you ever ate in your life if it ain't it ought to be we'll see you next time pose up real nice for the for the we're going to use this for the thumbnail see you next time bye-bye

Channel: Cooking with Shotgun Red

Views: 261,135

Rating: 4.8697109 out of 5

Keywords: hashbrowns, casserole, hashbrown casserole, Ritz crackers, potatoes, homemade casserole

Id: kdoKFdNy5_s

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2017