The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #177: Herb-Glazed Sandwiches

Howdy Jigglers! Today I bring you Herb-Glazed Sandwiches, a recipe straight out of the annals of tea party history and, frankly, one of the most interestingly strange ideas from The Joys of Jell-O. This one has haunted me for a long time, but I didn't have any other inspiration for what to make for lunch last weekend, so I figured I had no excuse not to make these. The recipe basically involves covering one of a number of savory open-faced sanwich variations with a tangy spiced gelatin glaze and chilling until firm.
 

I really liked the idea of the corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich, as well as the liver pate and egg, but ultimately I went with the roast beef and tomato to keep things simple. If you want to see the results of the chicken and bacon option, see this blog post from Mid-Century Menu.

This really is a simple recipe to follow: put some herbs on the stove to simmer, strain your mixture and add gelatin and more spices, then chill until syrupy. In the meantime, construct your sandwiches, then pour the gelatin over once it's ready. Everything goes into the fridge for a while, and voila--herb-glazed sandwiches. The only tricky part is covering the sandwiches with the glaze. It likes to slip off, which makes it difficult to coat the entire sandwich surface, but it's not a big deal.

In my case, I altered the recipe just slightly. I used unflavored gelatin and a generous splash of lemon extract in place of Jell-O so it wouldn't turn out sweet. I also omitted the dill and multiplied the cayenne by eight or so due to taste preferences. For the sandwiches themselves, I used multi-grain bread with no butter because that's what I had, and for the same reason I arranged some sliced cherry and cocktail tomatoes on the sandwiches instead of big slicers. I think it turned out a little mid-mod, don't you think?

Despite the foreignness of the idea of this recipe, the sandwiches taste pretty good. The glaze acts like a slightly jigglier mustard with its vinegar and spices, and it's hard to go wrong with roast beef and tomato. Even with an overly zealous amount of cayenne, though, the spiciest part of the whole thing was the horseradish by far, and I had spread it out as thin as it could get. The only really disappointing part, though, was that I didn't taste the herb flavors too clearly.

The sandwiches do look nice. They of course look shiny and wet, but that's fetching in its way.

As you can see, in my experience the quantity of glaze yielded by this recipe is just enough for eight sandwiches, although that will vary depending on bread size.

There are a few further alterations I would make to this recipe, were I to make it again (and who knows!): I would use the juice of one lemon in place of the lemon extract and one tablespoon of the vinegar, I would add another bay leaf and some more peppercorns and simmer all of that for fifteen or twenty minutes to really get their flavor out, I would go out of my way to make sure the bread was buttered, and, if I were serving these all at once to family or guests, I would toast the bread before assembling the sandwiches. 

After four days the sandwiches start to get soggy, but they hold up remarkably well before that, in part thanks to the preservative powers of gelatin. All in all, this is quite the success in the savory gelatin category, which makes it the first savory recipe I've done from TJOJ that has even remotely worked. Congrats, General Foods!

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #28: Plum Pudding

Howdy Jigglers!* Today I bring you another completely out-of-season gelatin dessert, namely Plum Pudding. Yes, I know, that's a Christmas treat, but citron was on sale a couple of months ago, and I didn't think leaving it to stew in its juices for a full year would help the dish's flavor, so here we go!

Yes, you read that right: this dessert is a bread pudding-like dish with none other than Grape Nuts cereal to give body to the pudding, and yes, you can make it a figgy pudding. Honestly, the thought of cooking with Grape Nuts was enough to pique my oddball Jell-O stunts interest.

I prepared this recipe almost exactly as written, except I omitted the nuts because I didn't have any on hand, so to fill the space I added a little extra raisins, prunes, citron, and Grape Nuts. Also, as per usual, I replaced lemon Jell-O with lemon extract and unflavored gelatin, plus a tablespoonful of brown sugar.

One particularly exciting aspect of this recipe is getting to use my new mini gelatin molds for the first time! Previously I've only made Jell-O molds in a Bundt pan, which is just not the same. You can't see the scalloped edge detail on these molds too clearly due to the granular look of the pudding, but I was happy to have the chance to test those bad boys out, and sure enough, a purpose-made mold is much easier to work with for this purpose!

These molds smell and taste just like Christmas with all the sugary spiced fruit and just a hint of citrus. After tasting a bit of Grape Nuts by itself, I was deeply concerned about the bran flavor ruining the dish, but I think it is a perfect foil to the saccharine fruits. You can't even really taste it since it soaks up the sweetened gelatin. Of note, I think this pudding would be great with chopped pecans or walnuts.

As strange as it may look and sound, this Plum Pudding actually does taste very good. The gelatin only really holds the components together and makes the Grape Nuts soften, so it doesn't taste much like Jell-O texturally, which is good in this case. It is very strongly spiced, though, which would make this a perfect contender for the a la mode treatment. And if you can't find citron, I wouldn't fret too much--it added a little crunchiness to the final product, but the flavor it adds is negligible. All in all, I think this would definitely be an acceptable alternative to a traditional plum pudding at Christmastime, and plus, it's a holiday dessert with all the nutrition and fiber of Grape Nuts impregnated with a superfood (gelatin), only with fruit added! It's a win-win!

After reading about the optional custard or hard sauce in the recipe, I immediately started looking up what in the world a hard sauce is. It turns out that it is an old-fashioned, sweet, buttery sauce that is British in origin. After some deliberation I made a version of this sauce that I found on Southern Living's website. While this sauce would be an even better accompaniment if spiked with rum or rum extract, I made it as written with only vanilla and (freshly grated) nutmeg, except with half the butter since I ran out. Even made in this relatively tame fashion, it served very well to dress up the pudding, though it does look like the kind of brown gravy that one would serve with potatoes. I guess I'm mostly just glad that they didn't call for serving it with mayonnaise...



*This is my new nickname for all those avid readers of The Actual Joys of Jell-O out there.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #169: Cranberry Sauce

Even though we have a long time to wait until Thanksgiving, I can never get enough cranberry goodness. So, when I was looking for a vintage Jell-O recipe to make without having to buy many ingredients, my eye was immediately drawn to the several cranberry-based gelatin recipes in TJOJ, specifically the Cranberry Sauce, as it requires only cranberries, water, gelatin, sugar, and salt. 

 

Now, of course, I wanted to make this dish as crantastic as possible, so I replaced the water and flavored Jell-O for unflavored gelatin and cranberry juice with a splash of lemon extract. I also ran out of sugar before I hit the 2/3 cup mark, so I just left it at that, thinking the juice would provide enough extra sweetness.

 

The recipe is relatively straightforward, except that I think I made an error in the sieving stage. When straining the cranberry mixture, I had a hard time expressing much pulp, so I added everything from the top of the strainer bowl back in as well as what little pulp I could scrape off of the bottom, including the skins. That made the texture a little strange, and added some extra tartness. I reckon it's just a little extra fiber, but if I were making this again, I would just strain the mixture and not worry about getting the pulp back in. I don't think it makes a lot of difference.

The end result is truly a strong expression of what cranberries are. It tastes like canned cranberry sauce times thirty. I actually have to pour extra sugar or honey on top to make it pleasant to eat, so I strongly recommend adding all the recommended sugar if using 100% cranberry juice. If you are concerned about using too much sugar, I would recommend using half cranberry juice and half water, and in that case, I think you could get away with half a cup or so. I do recommend adding a little lemon extract, and for once I don't mind the salt called for in the recipe.

This dish is quite pretty (it would look gorgeous served in a crystal bowl), and for me it made eight relish-sized servings. I think it would go great with turkey or any other poultry, as well as with pork. While I will always default to my traditional cranberry relish (one bag of fresh cranberries, one orange cut into eighths, and sugar to taste, whizzed in a food processor for approximately five seconds or until finely diced, then left to stew in its juices for at least an hour), this is easily my second choice for a cranberry dish to go along with white meat, as it is potent and has a much more glaze-like texture than the canned variety even when fully set, plus it doesn't look like it came out of can.

Oh, and as an added bonus, I tried this recipe with its serving suggestion of a mint garnish and mayonnaise. Why mayonnaise? I don't know, it seems like mayonnaise was a hit fashion accessory in the 1960s, as they recommend serving about half of the recipes in this book with it. Anyhow, I actually enjoyed eating the sauce this way, as the mayonnaise does make it creamy and it cuts the sourness significantly. It also makes it taste a bit more savory. The mint doesn't add much flavorwise, but it certainly looks nice.