Home › Pickles-Relishes › Chicken Salad
Chicken Salad with Lemon & Cayenne
1/2 pkg. lemon jello. 1 C boiling chicken broth (free from fat) Mrs. C. I. Casey. 1 pimento, cut fine 1 T vinegar ½ t salt 1 C chicken cut medium coarse Shake of cayenne pepper 1 C celery cut fine 1/2 C heavy cream-whipped Dissolve jello in boiling broth. Chill. When cold and slightly thickened beat with a rotary egg-beater until consistency of whipped cream. Mix chicken, celery, pimento, vinegar, salt and cayenne pepper, add to jello fold in whipped cream and turn in mold. Chill until firm, Serve on lettuce and garnish with stuffed olives. Serves six. Hannah Meyer.
A gelatin-bound chicken salad of the sort that filled church supper tables in the mid-twentieth century. The ingredient list as printed is scrambled, so read it carefully before shopping.
- The missing ingredientThe instructions say "dissolve jello in boiling broth," but no gelatin appears in the list. A package of flavoured gelatin is evidently meant, dissolved in the single cup of hot broth; neither the flavour nor the quantity survives on the page. With only a cup of liquid the set will be firm, which is what carries the mold.
- "12 t salt"A typesetting casualty for 1/2 teaspoon. Taste the broth first; a well-salted stock may need less.
- Whipping the gelatinThe hinge of the recipe. The gelatin must be chilled to the point where it mounds slightly on a spoon before beating, and no further. Beat it too early and it stays liquid; too late and it breaks into rubbery lumps that will not smooth out.
- PimentoSold in small jars as roasted pimiento peppers, packed in brine. One whole pepper, drained and diced fine, is what is meant.
- Cutting the chicken"Medium coarse" points to hand-cut pieces rather than shredded or ground meat. Poached breast or leftover roast both work; a food processor will turn it to paste.
- Setting timeNo time is given. Allow at least four hours in the refrigerator for a small mold, and overnight for a ring or loaf pan. Unmold by dipping the mold briefly in warm water and inverting onto the lettuce.
- Keeping it coldA cream-and-poultry salad held at room temperature is a poor idea over a long buffet. Serve it straight from the refrigerator and return leftovers within two hours.
- YieldSix as stated, in about a one-quart mold, as a luncheon course rather than a main dish.
Molded salads like this one sit at the meeting point of two developments: commercially packaged flavored gelatin, which by the 1920s and 1930s was cheap and shelf-stable enough for any household, and the mechanical rotary egg-beater, which made whipping cream and aerating gelatin a matter of minutes rather than an ordeal. The result was a whole genre of chilled, sliceable salads that looked impressive on a platter, stretched a small amount of meat, and could be made the day before a supper. That last point explains why church and club cookbooks such as this one are thick with them.