Le Creuset Signature Round Casserole

The Le Creuset Signature Round Casserole exists for the point at which dinner has stopped being a quick meal and acquired a lid, a timetable and perhaps an audience. This selected version is a 28 cm enamelled cast-iron casserole with a stated 6.7-litre capacity, so it is plainly not trying to disappear behind the cereal packets.

We picked it because a proper lidded casserole fills a very practical gap in a kitchen line-up. Some meals need more room than a modest pan can offer, and a single, clearly specified vessel is easier to make sense of than the usual cupboard archaeology involving three mismatched pots and one lid that belongs nowhere.

The Cerise variant is also unabashedly red. That will be either the point or the problem, depending on whether your kitchen leans towards cheerful French cookware or an anxious truce between beige appliances. At least it is an intentional object; nobody accidentally buys a 28 cm red casserole.

There is a small reality check before romance takes over: 6.7 litres and 28 cm are useful numbers precisely because they describe something sizeable. We think this is the sensible pick for cooks with room for a full-scale casserole dish, not a decorative monument to the idea of cooking more stews.