Venison Tater Tot Hotdish is creamy and comforting

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The Details

This is a limited series featuring wild game recipes from local wild game chef Jeff Benda, author of the Wild Game & Fish Cookbook. More content is available on his website, wildgameandfish.com, and Instagram.

Some foods you can serve in North Dakota without explanation, and tater tot hotdish is one of them. Bring a pan to a church potluck, funeral luncheon, or family gathering, and nobody needs to ask what it is or why it’s there.

Hotdish is built on the simple premise that meat, vegetables, something creamy and a generous layer of potatoes make a perfectly respectable meal.

For hunters, it's also an excellent way to use ground venison. By this point in the year, many of us are taking inventory of the freezer and discovering a few packages of last season’s deer tucked beneath the roasts and steaks.

Ground venison works especially well here because its lean, clean flavor gets plenty of help from the creamy mushroom sauce, sweet corn, spinach and Monterey Jack cheese.

And then there are the tater tots. I arrange them in neat concentric circles, starting around the outside of the skillet and working toward the center. Is this strictly necessary? Absolutely not.

Does a tiled roof of crisp potatoes make the finished hotdish more appealing? I think so. More importantly, keeping the tots in a single layer gives each one room to brown rather than steam.

This is also the sort of dinner that invites kids into the kitchen. When my daughter was younger, arranging the tater tots was an easy job to hand over to her. The recipe requires only one 12-inch cast-iron skillet, about 10 minutes of prep and ingredients available at just about any grocery store in the Upper Midwest.

The result is exactly what a good hotdish ought to be: creamy underneath, crisp on top, substantial enough for a cold evening and familiar without being dull.

Set the skillet directly on the table and don't be surprised if people start negotiating over the especially crisp tater tots around the edges.

• Venison Tater Tot Hotdish
• Serves 8
• Prep time:
• 10 minutes
• Cook time:
• 40 minutes
• Ingredients:
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1 pound ground venison
• 1 (15-ounce) can whole-kernel corn, drained
• 1 (10-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 cup whole milk or half-and-half
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped
• 8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
• 1 (16-ounce) bag frozen tater tots
• Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 3 minutes.

Add the ground venison and cook, breaking it into small pieces with a wooden spoon or spatula, until no longer pink, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Reduce the heat to low. Stir in the corn, cream of mushroom soup, milk, salt and black pepper until thoroughly combined. Add the spinach and cook, stirring, until wilted and heated through, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat.

Sprinkle the Monterey Jack evenly over the venison mixture. Arrange the frozen tater tots in a single layer over the cheese, starting around the outside of the skillet and working toward the center.

Bake at 400 degrees until the filling is bubbling around the edges and the tater tots are crisp and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

For more approachable wild game and fish recipes, visit www.wildgameandfish.com.

Pre-order Jeff Benda’s new Wild Game & Fish Cookbook today, featuring 80 recipes inspired by North Dakota’s remarkable hunting and fishing heritage and the wild food that brings families back to the table.