Do you have a freezer with a bunch of random packs of frozen game? I know I do, and I’m not even a hunter. But I love a lot of hunters, have generous friends, and I prioritize eating sustainably. So every year I end up with a good supply of locally harvested and processed meat. I also buy 25 pounds of ground beef from a local ranch each fall, rendering the garage freezer nice and full during the winter.

As we move toward snowy season, I start thinking about hearty casseroles. Some on my regular rotation include homemade chicken pot pie; Mexican lasagna; jumbo pasta shells stuffed with local chorizo, butternut squash, kale, and marinara; my friend Jenny’s potato chip-tater tot casserole; shepherd’s pie; Deborah Madison’s lentil-quinoa gratin with sweet potatoes; tamale pie, and Amy Sedaris’s Tiddlywinks Toadstool Pie.

The thing about a regular rotation is that eventually we want variety. Combine that with the fact that I’m usually down to a few miscellaneous packages of whatever meat didn’t sound as glam to my tastebuds until later, and I’m sometimes forced to get creative. And that meat is there, so it’s gonna get eaten. When I need to jazz up that ground antelope or bison, the following recipe for Scroutch is great for just that purpose, crammed as it is with tangy and haphazard ingredients—it’s a perfect way to use up any ground meat.

This recipe was given to me by my Aunt Mary, a genealogist, archivist, and foodie—separate qualities which she sometimes exercises together. She received the recipe from my grandmother Olive, “Grandma Ovie,” who was not exactly famous for her cooking skills. Ovie may have made a dish or two from her Holy Spirit Episcopal Church cookbook once or twice a year (a tome which I’d pay cash money to have in my hands today). But Ovie was famous for enjoying a bridge game, part of which included exchanging recipes with her fellow Missoulians. So who knows which World War II-era housewife is responsible for passing this casserole into my orbit.

Whoever she was, I bet the word “scroutch” meant something to her—it’s a variation of the word “scrooch,” a verb meaning to crouch, squeeze, or huddle. The most that Google and the Oxford English Dictionary have to say about the word is that it originated as a U.S. colloquial and dialect word in the 19th century, as a variant of scrouge (to squeeze or crowd), “itself a blend of the obsolete verb scruze, ‘to squeeze and gouge’.”

So there you have it… and here’s how you make it.



Ingredients
1 lb. ground meat
(beef, elk, bison, antelope, etc.)
1 red onion
1 celery stalk
1 cup cooked rice or noodles
1 4-oz. can sliced mushrooms
½ cup grated cheddar cheese
1 2.25-oz. can sliced olives
2 tablespoons pimentos
½ can cream-style corn
½ can tomato soup
½ can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Instructions
1. Cook the rice or noodles.
2. Chop and sauté the onion and celery in olive oil until translucent and soft. Remove from pan and set aside.
3. Cook the ground meat thoroughly and stir in the onion and celery.
4. In a large mixing bowl, combine the rice or noodles, beef mixture, and remaining ingredients.
5. Pour into a greased 9x13” casserole dish.
6. Bake at 350 for one hour on middle rack.
7. Optional – top with potato chips or cornflakes at 45 minutes and bake 15 minutes more.
8. Mentally put yourself at a card table with a lot of Montana grannies in fancy hats, serve with sour cream and minced chives, and enjoy.

For vegetarians out there, I’m willing to bet that this could be made with lentils instead of meat. I haven’t done so myself yet, but I will, because lentils are one of Montana’s locally grown foods, and I like to support our farmers (shout-out to Highland Harmony Farm, from whom I buy most of my grains and legumes at the farmer’s market). And my veggie-head sister and her family will visit next year, so yes, I’m already planning meals ahead. Either way, Scroutch is a fun and unusual casserole to add to one’s repertoire—for me, half the fun of cooking is collecting new and different ingredients, recipes, tools, you name it. If you agree, give this recipe a try and let us know what you think!