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Jellied Ginger-Grape Salad
2 1/2 tablespoons gelatine 1/2 cup cold water 3 tablespoons sugar 1 pint bottle ginger ale 1 cup grape juice 1 cup seeded white grapes Soak gelatine in cold water 5 minutes. Dissolve in hot grape juice, add sugar and cool. Add ginger ale, and pour into wet molds. Add the grapes when gelatine is partly set. Serve with Fluffy Pecan Mayonnaise.
A molded gelatin salad from the era when a shimmering ring on a bed of lettuce counted as a course. The proportions work, but a few of the terms need translating.
- Gelatine measure2 1/2 tablespoons of granulated unflavored gelatin is about 2 1/2 envelopes (roughly 18 g). Against 3 1/2 cups of total liquid that is a firm, sliceable set, which is what you need for a salad that must be unmolded and cut.
- Pint bottle of ginger aleA US pint is 2 cups. Buy a dry, sharply gingery ginger ale rather than a sweet one, since the grape juice and 3 tablespoons of sugar already carry the sweetness.
- The hinge: keep the ginger ale coldHeat only the grape juice, just to steaming, to dissolve the bloomed gelatin, then cool the mixture to lukewarm before the ginger ale goes in. Pouring it into hot liquid drives off the carbonation that gives this salad its faint prickle.
- Seeded white grapesIn this period 'seeded' meant the seeds had been picked out, and 'white' meant green. Use seedless green grapes and halve them lengthwise; whole grapes float and slip out of the slices when cut.
- Wet moldsRinse the molds in cold water and leave them wet rather than oiling them. The film of water lets the set jelly release cleanly. One 6-cup ring mold or six to eight individual molds will hold this.
- When to add the fruitChill until the jelly is the consistency of raw egg white, about 45 to 60 minutes, then fold in the grapes so they suspend evenly. Total setting time is 4 hours or more; overnight is safer for a firm unmolding.
- Fluffy Pecan MayonnaiseA dressing the recipe expects you to find elsewhere in the book; the name points to mayonnaise lightened with whipped cream with chopped pecans stirred through. Any mayonnaise folded half-and-half with softly whipped cream, plus a handful of toasted pecans, gives the same effect.
- YieldSix to eight servings as a salad course, on crisp lettuce.
Ginger ale in gelatin was a hallmark of the 1920s and 1930s molded-salad vogue, when packaged granulated gelatin had become cheap and reliable enough for home cooks to build a whole category of dishes around it. Bottled soft drinks and bottled grape juice were both readily available by then, and using them in place of water was the sort of gesture that marked a recipe as up to date. An unmolded ring, garnished and served with a whipped-cream dressing, was showpiece food that could be made the day before and held in the icebox, which mattered a great deal to a hostess cooking without help.