Frankfurters & Corn Casserole

One-dish meals that combine meat and vegetable are a great idea, at least in theory. The whole dinner is in one place, the kids can’t fussily avoid one or the other, and cleanup is reduced.

That’s the theory, at least. In practice, one-dish dinners tend to be even messier (somehow) and picky eaters will outright refuse everything because “the hot dog is touching the corn, waaaah!”

1/4 cup finely chopped onions
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups canned whole kernel corn, drained
3 eggs beaten
1/4 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon melted butter or margarine
1 pound frankfurters, scored

Preheat oven to 350°. Cook onions in butter until transparent; stir in flour. Add salt and pepper. Over low heat, gradually stir in milk; cook until sauce is thick and smooth, stirring constantly. Remove from head and add corn. Fold in beaten eggs. Pour into 1 1/2 quart buttered casserole. Mix melted butter and bread crumbs; sprinkle on top. Bake 30 minutes; place frankfurters on top of casserole and bake 15 minutes longer.

Let’s see how this casserole turns out, shall we?

This just doesn’t really look tasty to me. Maybe I’ve had too many frankfurters recently, but corn, eggs, and hot dogs… ew.

But fearless retro recipe tester that I am, the roux was made without further complaint.

I really do like a good roux, since it’s often a base for further delicious innovations. In this case, though, we’re adding eggs and corn, which is sad and slightly frightening.

But everything’s better when you sprinkle breadcrumbs and hot dogs on top, right?

This was overall disappointing and uninspired — and also confusing: why do you need to put frankfurters on top? The two components didn’t have anything to do with each other… although it looked sorta cool. The corn casserole itself was a little bit bland, so the salty hot dogs did enhance the overall flavor a tiny bit. I’d recommend a more interesting corn casserole without wieners, though.

Recipe comes to you via Vintage Recipe Cards.

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