The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #129: Vegetables in Sour Cream

Howdy, Jigglers! Since I had some sour cream left over from the last JOJ recipe I made, I decided to make another sour cream-based recipe with sour cream and Jell-O: Vegetables in Sour Cream. Did it sound like a good idea? No. Did that deter me? Not a chance.

While I was unable to find tarragon vinegar, I did find the last bottle of tarragon on the shelf, so I let some tarragon steep in regular white vinegar for three days ahead of when I was going to make the gelatin, which worked just fine. I'd never used tarragon before, but now I highly recommend it. It's slightly sweet and minty, but also savory and vegetal. I bet it would make an excellent vinegarette for a spring salad.

 

Anyway, I did make a few substitutions and alterations to the ingredients in order to make the best dish possible. Firstly, I used lime juice to flavor some unflavored gelatin instead of lime Jell-O (because the sweetness of Jell-O would be very bad in this recipe). Furthermore, I used a spoonful of chicken bouillon powder instead of bouillon cubes. I also halved the quantity of each vegetable because I've always found that using the full amount makes the vegetables stick out of the gelatin too much and crowd in together unpleasantly.

The method for crafting Vegetables in Sour Cream is as basic and simple as it gets. You put your gelatin and bouillon in water, you heat the water, you add the lime juice. Then you chill, stir in the vegetables, and pour into the mold. Chill again.

And the result is...actually really good. The vegetables go well together, they stay nice and crisp in the gelatin, it's a pretty salad mold, and the gelatin matrix has a wonderful depth of flavor, what with the savory bouillon, the tarragon vinegar, the lime juice, and the sour cream. It's tangy and savory and all-around nice.

I really must commend General Foods on this vegetable mix. You couldn't pay me to sub in peas and carrots like the recipe mentions. Cucumber, scallions, radish, celery, and green pepper make a perfect spring combination. I also like that all of the veggies are diced or thinly sliced. That makes the mold much easier to cut and serve cleanly, and honestly it makes it less messy to eat.

Now look at that interior shot and tell me that halving the amount of vegetables wasn't the right thing to do. Of course, one could just as well double the amount of all of the gelatin ingredients and keep the original vegetable amounts, which would make double the amount of your mold, but with a better ratio of gelatin to vegetable.

So, overall, this recipe was very impressive. Other than the changes I made, I wouldn't alter anything, and I honestly would serve it at a spring luncheon or Easter or at a picnic as an honest-to-goodness vegetable side dish that just happens to contain gelatin. I know it seems miraculous, but it's true. Another thing I found nice about this dish is that you can use the leftover vegetables to make a nice crudites tray. So good on you, General Foods, for making a savory vegetable mold recipe that I don't even think would be that out of place in a modern Food & Wine magazine or something.