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Half-A-Can Recipes: Jellied
Half-a-Can Recipes Jellied pimiento and cabbage salad with a mayonnaise dressing.
Jellied beet salad on hearts of lettuce with a mayonnaise dressing.
White cherries, orange, and English walnuts with mayonnaise and whipped cream. Cherries, raisins, and pecans with a French or mayonnaise dressing.
Jellied Pimiento and Cabbage Salad 1½ tablespoonful gelatin 1 canned pimiento 2 tablespoonfuls cold water cupful boiling water 1½ tablespoonfuls lemon juice 1 tablespoonful vinegar cupful shredded cabbage green pepper 1 tablespoonfuls sugar 1/4 teaspoonful salt Soften the gelatin in cold water, add the boiling water, and cool. Shred the cabbage and pepper and cut the pimiento into short strips. Mix the salt, sugar, lemon juice, and vinegar, and add with the cabbage, pepper, and pimiento to the softened gelatin. Pour into custard cups and place in the refrigerator to set. Serve on hearts of lettuce with a mayonnaise dressing.
Jellied Beet Salad 1 tablespoonful gelatin 2 tablespoonfuls cold water ½ cupful boiling water 2 tablespoonfuls vinegar 1 teaspoonful salt teaspoonful paprika 1 tablespoonful sugar 3/4 cupful diced beets Soften the gelatin in cold water, add the boiling water, seasoning, and beets, and pour into a mold to cool and set. Serve on hearts of lettuce with a mayonnaise dressing.
Corn Fritters 1 cupful corn 1 cupful sifted flour 1/2 green pepper, sliced 1/3 cupful milk 1 egg or an egg white 1 teaspoonful baking ½ teaspoonful salt powder teaspoonful paprika Cook the pepper in boiling water a few minutes to soften; cool, and slice. Mix the Half-a-Can Recipes corn, pepper, milk, egg yolk and seasoning, add the flour and baking powder sifted together, and fold in the beaten white of the egg. Bake as griddlecakes in a buttered skillet.
Escalloped Corn and Tomatoes 1 cupful corn 1/2 cupful tomatoes teaspoonful paprika 1/2 cupful buttered bread crumbs teaspoonful salt 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter Mix the bread crumbs in two tablespoonfuls melted butter. Into a buttered baking dish place a layer of corn, a layer of tomatoes and crumbs, and repeat in the same order. Bake until brown, and serve.
Corn Pudding or Timbales can corn 1 tablespoonful melted 1 egg butter 1 teaspoonful sugar ½ cupful milk teaspoonful salt Beat up the eggs and add the other ingredients, pour into individual buttered custard cups, and bake slowly, or set in a pan of hot water and bake as custard.
A cluster of small-scale recipes built around what is left in an opened can, from a period when a kitchenette meant one burner, a small oven and no room to waste food. Several quantities in the text have lost their fractions, so read the notes below before measuring.
- Missing fractionsNumbers such as "cupful boiling water", "green pepper", "teaspoonful paprika" and "can corn" have dropped their fractions in this printing. Where the amount is genuinely ambiguous, judge by the finished consistency rather than guessing at a number: the jellied salads want roughly three-quarters of a cup of liquid total per tablespoon of gelatin.
- The gelatin ratio is the hingeOne tablespoon of granulated unflavored gelatin is roughly one standard envelope (about 1/4 oz, in practice a shade under a tablespoon) and will set about two cups of liquid. With well under a cup of liquid here plus bulky vegetables, these salads should unmold stiff and sliceable, which is how jellied salads of the period were generally meant to eat. Soften in the cold water for a few minutes before the boiling water goes in, and stir until no grains remain.
- Cool before adding the vegetables"Add the boiling water, and cool" matters. Fold in shredded cabbage and pepper while the mixture is still hot and they wilt and weep; let it thicken to raw egg white first and the pieces stay suspended instead of sinking.
- Canned pimientoStill sold in small jars, sweet and already fully cooked. Drain and pat dry, or the packing liquid thins the gelatin and bleeds pink through the mold.
- Custard cupsIndividual ovenproof cups of about 6 oz, the standard single-serving mold of the era. Ramekins are the direct equivalent. Rinse them with cold water before filling and the jellies release with a brief dip in warm water.
- Corn fritters are griddlecakesDespite the name, the instruction is to bake them in a buttered skillet, not deep-fry. Medium heat, about 350F on an electric griddle; the batter is thick and wants turning once when the surface sets.
- Oven temperaturesThe text gives none. For escalloped corn and tomatoes, a moderate oven of 350 to 375F for roughly 30 minutes until the crumbs brown is a reasonable modern reading. 'Bake slowly' for the corn pudding suggests something around 325F, and of the two options given the water bath is the safer, since it keeps the egg from curdling; check from about 35 minutes until just set at the center.
- Buttered crumbs, onceThe escalloped corn lists buttered crumbs and then two tablespoons of melted butter to make them. That is one quantity of butter, not two, tossed through the crumbs before layering.
The "half-a-can" premise addresses a genuine problem of the time: canned corn, tomatoes, beets and pimientos came in sizes meant for families, home refrigeration was a small ice chest at best, and an opened can had to be used up within a day or two. The jellied salads reflect the other great fashion of the period, granulated gelatin, which had become a reliable packaged staple and turned up on American tables in every form from tomato aspic to fruit-and-nut molds. The combination of a molded vegetable jelly and a rich dressing was considered both refined and economical.