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!
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