Way Out There Recipe #2: Hanuda Noodles (from Siren)

Howdy, Jigglers! I'm back with another strange recipe, although I have to tell you, this one contains minimal quantities of gelatin. 

This story begins with a Playstation 2 game named Siren, which is an atmospheric and notoriously slow Japanese survival horror title. At one point in the game, which takes place in a fictional town called Hanuda, you find a note bearing a recipe for a very odd bowl of ramen noodles, and you see a shibito (Siren's version of zombies) policeman chowing down on the selfsame noodles in a cafe.

I love Siren, I love cooking, and I even love ramen, so I knew I had to make this dish. The recipe is as follows (thanks to the Siren Archive Files Guide for the transcription):

Recipe For Hanuda Noodles

      Hanuda Noodles: a local specialty.  Mention Hanuda, and these noodles
      instantly come to mind.  The chewy strands are unsurpassed in firmness
      and texture.  The broth, a delicate melange of sweetness and spiciness, 
      acts as the perfect compliment to the noodles.  How to prepare Hanuda
      Noodles:

           1. Boil noodles for 3 minutes in a large pot of boiling water.
           2. Drain water and rinse noodles well in cold water.
           3. Place noodles in broth made of soup stock, chili, vinegar, sake,
              and sugar.  Top with organic strawberry jam.  Serve with
              seasonal fruits if desired.

This photo is in the game with the recipe

Now, since neither Hanuda nor its firm noodles exist in reality, I subbed in regular ramen

noodles. I of course included the seminal ingredient, strawberry jam, but I also did happen 

to have a cucumber on hand, so I put in a few slices, and ditto for the egg. I did not happen 

to have fresh strawberries, so I omitted them. I cannot positively identify the whitish 

vegetable in the back of the bowl, but it might be the white portion of a green onion, so I 

garnished the bowl with some green onions. It appears that the bowl in the photo was 

garnished with some crushed peanuts, but I omitted that too. Sorry.

The other issue in making this dish was getting the broth right, since it needed to be a

delicate melange and all. I figured I would do this right by starting with a base of homemade

chicken stock (there's the gelatin!), to which I added a hearty splash of sake, several hearty 

dashes of some very hot chili powder, and two dainty splashes of rice vinegar. I completely 

and totally forgot about the sugar in this recipe, but I used a pretty low-grade sake, so it was

plenty sweet regardless. Always taste and adjust seasonings, especially when making oddball 

flavor combinations!

Other than a few ingredient substitutions, I made the recipe as written, even managing to

soft-boil an egg perfectly, which I can almost never do. And the taste was...alright, actually.

I probably overdid the chili powder, but the sweetness of the jam cut it nicely, and the

broth itself was so good that my husband told me I need to make regular ramen with it. Even

the onion didn't clash with the rest of the flavors. The only main problem was that the jam

bascially overpowers the other elements of the dish when you get a bite with jam. Maybe

it's because I didn't use organic strawberry jam, or maybe it wouldn't have been quite so

sweet with homemade jam, but it didn't ruin the noodles regardless.

I ended up thinking I would probably eat this outside of novelty purposes, but my husband

disagreed. Regardless, it was a pleasure getting to taste test such an odd recipe from such a

beloved-but-odd story. Thanks, Project Siren, for your culinary contributions to the world!

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #101: Applesauce De Luxe

Howdy, Jigglers! This recipe was chosen at the behest of my husband, who claimed it sounded "kinda good." It is quite unsual for him to say that about a recipe from this particular cookbook, so it had to be made. Applesauce De Luxe is nothing more than molded applesauce with Jell-O-based fruit flavoring, in either raspberry or cherry, and a splash of lemon juice, but of course I had to tinker with the recipe a little bit.

As per usual I replaced Jell-O with unflavored gelatin. I couldn't find a 15 oz can of applesauce, so I used four 4 oz snack cups of applesauce so I could pack the leftover cups (they come in packs of six) in my lunches some other time. To get the fruit flavoring, I just included a pack of fresh raspberries, adding three tablespoons of white sugar because I used unsweetened applesauce, fresh lemon juice, and plain fruit, though this can be adjusted to taste and depending on the other ingredients used. 

I tried to get some red color out of the raspberries by mashing a few of them with a spoon and then mixing into the applesauce, but it didn't really work out. I imagine you could get the mold to be pinkish if you ran the fruits through the blender (especially if you use cherries).

Other than subbing out a few ingredients, I made this recipe as written, blooming the gelatin in the water before heating, then blending into the applesauce and juice and mixing in the fruit. I ended up using about a tablespoon and a half of gelatin, which was perfect for getting nice sturdy molds with this recipe.

And it turned out great! Basically the gelatin just tastes like applesauce with raspberries in it, but it looks great in individual molds, especially with the contrast of the applesauce and the fruit. I would not recommend serving with mayo or sour cream as the recipe states, but these rings would be simply delicious with some marshmallow-y fruit salad piled in the center. All told, this recipe made enough gelatin to fill eight individual ring molds plus two wine glasses--I just could not get any decent pictures of that for some reason.

I also must mention that this recipe is in the Two-Way Recipes section, meaning that it is meant to be served as a dessert or a salad. It makes a simple fruity dessert, but I imagine it would work unmolded atop fresh spinach and topped with pecans, blue cheese, and poppyseed dressing, too, though not so much if you are using regular saccharine Jell-O.

Basically, though, this is a solid recipe. I had never thought about combining applesauce with other fruits before, but it does add to the experience since prepackaged applesauce can be just the slightest bit boring, as we all know, and plus, molded applesauce is much prettier than just a blob of applesauce in a bowl! Thumbs up to General Foods for a simple two-way recipe that actually makes sense.

Way Out There Recipe #1: Molded Beet and Herb Salad

Howdy, Jigglers! So, I fully realize that between The Joys of Jell-O and the other three gelatin-specific cookbooks in my collection, I have enough Jell-O on my to-do list to keep me busy for a long time. However, sometimes you just stumple upon an opportunity you can't pass up, and so it was when I saw this beet-and-herb salad on Food52. 

Besides being very pretty (plus I really dig the mold they used), it appealed to me in the sense that I had some fermented beets along with beet brine in the fridge that needed to be finished up, and I have fresh herbs growing outside, so this seemed like a great way to get a lot of veggies and probiotics into my meals at no additional cost, and I can never argue with that.

The recipe is very simple to follow, though I did make two changes: I added my julienned fermented beets to the beet layer for extra beetiness, and I substituted worschester sauce for half of the balsamic vinegar. When I initially read this recipe, it reminded me flavorwise of a drinkable borscht I used to get from a Polish restaurant in the city where I used to live, which was a salty, beety, beefy broth, and I knew worschester could provide some of that umami-rich oomph to the flavor of this gelatin as well.

Apart from those minor changes, I used a food processor to chop the herbs instead of a blender because I still don't have a blender, but I recommend using a real blender if you can. I think it will extract the green color and various flavors from the herbs better. As it was, the herbed part of the salad tastes fine, but it stayed chunky and didn't turn green, so I added a drop of food coloring to get the effect. More on that later.

I was so taken by the appearance of this salad as one big mold that I wanted to find a way to make it work in my Bundt pan regardless of my previous struggles to get it to make molds attractive. So, inspired by the super-hard Jell-O I had recently at my local Chinese buffet, I added an extra tablespoon of gelatin to each layer of the salad to test if that would make it work better without imparting that classic musty gelatin taste, and I am proud to report that this part of the recipe test worked out phenomenally.

The salad indeed turned out firm and pretty, so I can confirm that you merely need extra gelatin to turn a Bundt pan into a decent mold. It looks much more purple in person than in the photos. Something important to note about the appearance of this dish if you plan on making it, though, is that the purple color of the beet layer will bleed into the herb layer after a couple of days in the refrigerator, so if you plan on making this for a party or some other such occasion, it's best to make it the same day or the day before for the aesthetic effect.

Tastewise, this dish is surprisingly good, though very salty due to my use of beet brine instead of beet juice. If you also wish to use beet brine, I recommend adding no salt to the herb layer for balance as well as eating the gelatin on some sort of unsalted cracker like a water cracker. My herbs mostly consisted of oregano and rosemary, but I also added thyme and green onions. I wanted to add parsley, but the day I went out to harvest the herbs I found that my parsley had been chomped back to nothing by the local wildlife. If you like dill, I imagine that this would be a perfect use for it.

All in all, this recipe is worth trying and does showcase the versatility of gelatin in an unexpected way, if you like beets, that is.

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.