The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #157: Party Potato Salad

Howdy, Jigglers! As I mentioned in my last post, I got a whole new batch of Jell-O recipes to make next, including some heirloom recipes from family members. However, thanks to random.org, the first recipe on the list was Party Potato Salad.

Potato salad is always a treat, but inserted into Jell-O, it just seems...intimidating. Especially when it's in a two-tiered gelatin tower with a clear gelatin layer and a whipped gelatin layer flavored like...oranges. Nevertheless, I forged on with some storebought potato salad, the cucumber and pimiento as called for, the vinegar, and a combination of orange juice and unflavored gelatin. You'll notice I omitted the green pepper rings. I don't intrinsically hate green peppers, but as a child I got severely burned out on them, so now I'm fairly choosy as to what I put them in.

Since I substituted orange juice for the orange flavoring in the Jell-O, I wanted to make sure that the orange flavor wasn't too overpowering, so I used 1.5 cups of water and 1.5 cups of orange juice for the liquid. First, I diced and salted the cucumber so it would have time to drain out excess liquid. Then, as per usual, I bloomed the gelatin on top of the juice mixture, heated it until the gelatin was entirely dissolved, added the salt and vinegar, and put a part of it in the mold to chill on its own. Meanwhile, I started chilling the rest of the gelatin to prepare to whip it. 

 

When it was ever so slightly thickened, I whipped it, and here I discovered something novel: normally I wait until the gelatin is a little thicker before I whip it, and it seems to take forever. Here I started whipping when it was just showing the slightest signs of coagulation, and it whipped up very fast, and furthermore it held the airiness as it continued to chill. Now I know.

Once the remaining gelatin was whipped, I folded in the potato salad and cucumber, then I arranged the pimiento on top of the clear gelatin in the mold and then added the whipped gelatin salad mixture. I decided to whip out my new tall mold for this job, but the entire salad still didn't fit, so I had to fill up another mold (pictured above) besides that one.

This wasn't intentional, but the top of this mold looks like orange sections, which works really well with the orange juice gelatin. The effect of the arranged vegetables would have worked better with a clear gelatin, sure, but frankly, I knew that orange Jell-O would be far too potent to work well with potato salad, and I think history has vindicated my actions.

I do love how gloriously tall this mold is. It truly feels like a sculptural, art-deco way to make food. The fluffy whipped portion of the salad just looks like...potato salad. Fortunately it doesn't taste too orange-y either. The whipped gelatin texture actually works really well with potato salad, too--it almost makes me wish that the recipe would have you blend your potato salad and then whip it together with the gelatin. I know that sounds strange, but the primary textural problem with this salad is the inconsistency of potato salad within the gelatin. As you fold it in, you can't get it evenly distributed (believe me, I tried), but if you blended/processed and whipped it, you'd get all of the flavor in there with a more uniform fluffy texture. Next time, I suppose.

A uniform texture would also make the mold slice more cleanly, of course. But more than that, I wanted to show you this photo as an illustration of what I consider to be a major issue with this mold: that top clear layer is much denser and heavier than the whipped gelatin below, which causes it to collapse in on itself when the mold is cut.

Perhaps this wouldn't be much of a problem if you used a shallow, wide mold (like a ring mold), but it's killer with this tall narrow mold. In the future, I would put the whipped layer on top and the clear layer on the bottom, with the pimiento arranged on the very bottom so it would be revealed like a surprise upon serving. I would also probably make a larger clear layer to make that look a little nicer.

This is really one of the better savory Jell-O recipes I've had in terms of taste, though. The bottom layer just tastes like foamy potato salad, and the top layer, while it is sweet despite the salt and vinegar, doesn't clash with the potato salad taste at all. Maybe it helps that the potato salad I used was somewhat sweet to begin with. This might be a different story with a strongly mustard-forward salad. The cucumber is a must, though. It adds a fresh crunch that works really well with everything else.

As weird as it sounds, Party Potato Salad would make a perfectly presentable picnic or backyard barbecue addition. If I were to make it again, I would make the structural modifications enumerated above, and if I wanted to add green pepper, I would add it in a dice and not in rings to improve ease of slicing, but other than that I wouldn't change anything about how I made it. I know if you're reading this and new to the blog, you probably think I'm far too cavalier about making potato salad--with fruity gelatin mixed in. Well, I'm nearing five years of service exploring the wacky world of 1960s Jell-O, and I suppose that it's hardened me. Not much can surprise me anymore. I guess that has made me a little more open-minded towards this only-mildly-weird combination of fruit flavors and random other ingredients. So congrats to General Foods for not going too off the deep end with this one!

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #128: Cauliflower Radish Salad

Howdy, Jigglers! Apart from being very busy with a new job and traveling over the holidays, one of the reasons I haven't posted much this winter is that I was at the end of a list of five Jell-O recipes that my husband picked out for me to make next, and Cauliflower Radish Salad was the last on the list. I love cauliflower, but radishes can be a little tough to like for me. I like them thinly sliced as a garnish (e.g. on mole tacos or a grain and kale salad), but I never make them the star of the show.

Then last weekend I got a new Jell-O mold at the thrift store, so I had to face the music and make this in order to get any more Jell-O recipes on my list. I figured I needed a vegetable side for my lunches anyway, so here goes nothing.

As celery salad Jell-O hasn't been available for over half a century now, of course I knew I was going to have to make some alterations to the recipe. For the gelatin itself, I used my standard unflavored gelatin powder mixed with celery salt, onion powder, and garlic powder. I also subbed in red wine vinegar for the white vinegar called for. How well did this work? Well, spoiler alert: I'm going to suggest some further alterations down below, but you're just going to have to wait to find out what they are.

As for the rest of the recipe, I omitted the grated onion and salt but followed the rest of the recipe to a T. Stirring in the ice cubes made the gelatin set very fast--in fact a little too fast, and so I had to add a little hot water to get it to be fluid enough for enough time to mix in the vegetables. Somehow in all this tumult, I did remember to reduce the quantity of each vegetable by roughly half to get a visually appealing mold. As per usual, they vastly overstate the amount you need (or vastly understate how much gelatin mixture you need).

Once I managed to get the veggies in, though, this set up in a flash and I had myself...a cauliflower radish celery Jell-O salad. Joy. It tastes...like celery-infused snot with the vegetables in it. I'm not a fan. The cauliflower is fine, but the taste of radish just needs to be offset by something stronger and tastier. I wish I would have put worscestershire sauce in it, or A1 sauce, or something to amplify the flavor a little bit above just celery.

It was, however, edible, and I did finish all of it. By the end, though, I had a few thoughts on how to fix this clunker of a Jell-O salad:

1. add chicken stock

2. add worcestershire sauce

3. add olives and diced jalapeno peppers

MAYBE that would be an acceptable picnic mold. Maybe. This was a hurdle that General Foods put in my path, so I had to overcome it, but let's face it: it wasn't enjoyable. At least now I get to go on to bigger and better things.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #170: Marzipan

Howdy, Jigglers! Providence led me to make today's Jell-O recipe. You see, this photo has always caught my eye when I peruse JOJ (which I often do):

And I do love marzipan: I love almond flavor, I love my desserts to have fun shapes and colors, and, of course, I love this Marzipan. The only thing that's held me back from making this recipe is that blanching and grating almonds doesn't sound fun at all, and I've always had my doubts about how well it would even work, since marzipan should have a very finely ground texture.

Over the holidays, however, I happened to be in a foreign foods store and find a couple of packages of premade marzipan, so of course I picked them up specifically to shove Jell-O into them. In my version of this recipe, then, all I use is commerically prepared marzipan and the Jell-O powder of your choice. Since I wanted to make the maximum number of distinct fruits possible with just one color, I got lemon Jell-O so I could make lemons and bananas.

The method for this recipe (the way I made it, anyhow) is probably the simplest of any I've ever made: squish up the marzipan in a bowl with the Jell-O powder until well combined (for two tubes of marzipan, I used an entire 3 oz envelope), then shape into the fruits or other shapes of your choice.

My sculpting abilities are obviously not the best, but you can sort of tell what they're supposed to be. As the recipe indicates, decorative finishing touches can be added to these fruits through painting food coloring on them (which is well beyond the scope of my abilities) or adding angelica or cloves for stems and such. Since I had them, I added some cloves to some of these. Note: this did impart a slight clove-y flavor to these pieces of marzipan, so if you're not a fan, find angelica, whatever that is.

If you are the kind of detail-oriented person who can decorate cookies, this marzipan recipe would be perfect for garnishing a cake or a fruit tray. I especially love how the pears and cherries look, and I bet oranges would look fantastic too. These are quite tasty, as well; this was another reason I chose lemon Jell-O, as I figured if that tart flavor would go well with the normal marzipan flavor, then any other Jell-O flavor would be fine. Sure enough, the lemon doesn't taste bad at all. The marzipan is quite sweet on its own, so the tartness of the lemon flavor isn't overwhelming. I imagine the cherry flavor would be particularly good for this, though.

All in all, this recipe works surprisingly well (with commercial marzipan, at least), and I admire General Foods's pluck and imagination for developing this charming version of an old-fashioned classic, but now with Jell-O.