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Post by Don Cuevas on Apr 22, 2010 13:52:17 GMT
Who else likes old fashioned food as I do? I was notorious on TTGS for pushing Perfection Salad. I hadn't had it in a long time, so I made some 2 days ago. Due to my inattententiveness, the Lime Jell-o set before I could add the shredded cabbage, carrots and sweet red pepper. (I was out of celery, and I didn't miss it.) I added the raw shredded vegs by chopping them into the set Jell-o. It was fine. We ate bowls of the sweet-tart fresh crunchy stuff over two days. Still a little left.
It's best when made from scratch, using unflavored gelatin, lime or lemon juice, salt, white wine vinegar, and the raw vegs. I added a shot of Salsa picante de Chile Perón.
This morning I made Tapioca Pudding. This is a nice dessert to have once in a while. The recipe I used, from About.com, used 2 eggs but did not require a separate whipping and subsequent folding in of the whites. Good, because I dislike beaten egg whites, with only a few exceptions.
Somehow, perhaps due to the nature of Mexican pearl tapioca, the pudding took perhaps 15 minutes of cooking after the pearls soaked overnight. The recipe said it would take more than 50 minutes. The result is creamy soft, not much like the stiffish, "frogs' eggs" style to which we are accustomed.
I used some crushed cardamom seeds, lime zest and vanilla for flavoring. I also added some small slices of mango after the pudding was slightly cooled.
Any old fashoned food favorites from the group?
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Post by lagatta on Apr 22, 2010 14:10:56 GMT
I don't like jello, but that would be good with unflavoured gelatin.
One thing I adore - no recipe really needed - is spaghetti with those little tinned clams. Often those are on special cheap (at least where I live) and they are VERY rich in iron. I just blond some garlic in olive oil, add the clam liquid first and let it reduce, then either some of my tomato sauce or cream and then the clams.
I don't make dessert in general, but that tapioca pudding does sound good.
I hadn't made that in years and didn't remember how good it was - and cheap.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Apr 22, 2010 15:25:11 GMT
Spaghetti with clam sauce: excellent and easy. I usually make it with parsley and no tomato. Very rarely use cream or sour cream in our home cooking. We are overwight enough.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 22, 2010 15:37:11 GMT
I most often make it with a bit of tomato. The cream in my case is a fake soya-based "cream" as I can only tolerate fermented dairy products and I use very little. Yes, parsley is essential, I forgot to mention it.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 22, 2010 16:23:41 GMT
Oh hell -- now I want tapioca! I've never seen it here, Don Cuevas. Is it called "tapioca"? Ditto to the clam spaghetti, although I must make an excursion to get the canned clams.
I have tons of old-fashioned food favorites (great OP, DonC, & fun to say, too!):
Cole slaw -- admittedly I gussy it up, but it's a dish with built-in variations.
Plain lettuce and tomato salad, made with iceberg lettuce, so there.
These are probably not old-fashioned favorites from everyone's family, but certainly from mine:
Bell peppers (or I use poblano) sauteed in olive oil
Pasta cooked with broccoli & dressed w/olive oil, salt and pepper.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Apr 22, 2010 22:40:06 GMT
"Oh hell -- now I want tapioca! I've never seen it here, Don Cuevas. Is it called "tapioca"?"
Yes; "tapioca". I think I bought mine in the deli dept of a local supermarket chain. It was sold loose, by weight, out of a big jar.
"Plain lettuce and tomato salad, made with iceberg lettuce, so there."
Nice, and great with a simple dressing, but unfortnately, the iceberg lettuce here has even less taste than that N of the Border, and watery, too.
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 23, 2010 17:18:20 GMT
aaaah! it's reminded me of a 70's classic: "Penne Vodka". I really liked that! will have to make it soon!
and I like my slow-cooker and my steamboat and such articles.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 23, 2010 17:53:18 GMT
I don't like iceberg lettuce - not because it is unfashionable but because I find it utterly tasteless. I would like the same salad with tomato and bibb/butterhead/boston lettuce - it has several names. That is mild but does have some flavour.
I do the pasta dish but with rapini, not the large broccoli (which I don't like very much).
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 23, 2010 18:04:06 GMT
I also remember the "riz a l'imperatrice" or whatever was its name of a rice that had chicken in a creamy sauce with some turmeric in and a few canned fruit added for good measure, served on boiled rice. Even after visiting India, I still kind of liked that dish, even if I wouldn't be seen dead cooking it myself...
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Post by lagatta on Apr 23, 2010 19:12:51 GMT
I remember Coronation Chicken (no, the chicken wasn't crowned, Elizabeth II was) which has similar elements. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_chicken Not canned fruit though, more often raisins or nuts. Ah, postwar food!
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Post by Don Cuevas on Apr 23, 2010 19:21:46 GMT
Riz A La Imperatrice.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 23, 2010 21:20:46 GMT
That looks more like a fancy version of rice pudding (riz au lait) than a chicken dish on rice.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 23, 2010 23:45:56 GMT
Well, sure ~~ better lettuce makes for a better salad, but we're talking about old-fashioned favorites here. I'm referencing an era when it was round supermarket lettuce or nothing. Much as I love tomato and white onion salads, or "better" lettuces, good old iceberg is always available and even satisfying in its way. (I've had crummy iceberg here, but also quite decent ones.)
Same thing with rapini -- my old-fashioned favorite is with broccoli, which I like, anyway.
I never heard of that rice dish. Maybe it wasn't popular in the US? I might as well admit that it sounds as though it has possibilities.
I don't know if this is something my mother made up, or if other people had it too. We liked it a lot for lunch as kids: canned tuna mixed with mushroom soup (using less milk) and served on buttered toast slices.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 24, 2010 2:18:49 GMT
I had relatives who always grew lettuce (remember, it is more of a cold-temperature crop) and what they grew was more like butterhead, looseleaf or romaine - though often it didn't really have a name, it was just "salad". I don't think iceberg is necessarily the easiest to grow in a home vegetable patch. The looseleaf lettuce crops up the first. These were country people of various origins (French, Italian, Irish...) not sophisticates. And I'm only a few years younger than you are, so this is legitimately "old fashioned". I'm not trying to sneak in any slowfood rediscovery. In cool climates we eat lettuce from spring to autumn, and it only "bolts" in very hot spells.
I've never heard of your tuna innovation, though I'm sure mums worked wonders with it everywhere. I was severely allergic to milk as a child (a sin in the postwar period) so we had to avoid a lot of premade cream soups and certainly anything with cow's milk mixed in. We got sardine sandwiches, and fortunately I've always liked fish, even fishy fish.
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 25, 2010 14:01:54 GMT
lagatta, it's because I got the name wrong. I checked my cookbook from school and riz a l'Imperatrice is described as in the pic.
I am not sure the creamy chicken dish had any particular name. guess it was known as curried chicken or something like that...
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Post by cristina on Apr 25, 2010 15:04:18 GMT
I think meatloaf falls in this category. I haven't made it in ages, though. I'm not sure why either, especially since a meatloaf sandwich the following day is a treat.
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 25, 2010 16:07:38 GMT
a lovely old lady I visited during my first few weeks in England made Coronation chicken from scratch for me. It was on a hot summer day and perfect for the occasion. The horrible industrial concoction found in supermarkets as "sandwich filler" has nothing to do with it.
And yes, I remember the days of "salad" there were different shapes and hues, but they didn't have elaborate names such as these days. I like "maple-tree leaf lettuce" myself.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2010 16:17:05 GMT
There are so many old fashioned French dishes that I wouldn't know where to begin. But I plan to perfect a pâté en croûte that my grandmother used to make. It is mostly marinated veal pieces and white wine sauce cooked in a flaky crust -- and served hot (unlike just about every other pâté en croûte). I've made it a couple times and wasn't too far off my grandmother's version, but it was her signature dish and I have to get it right.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 13, 2010 17:00:04 GMT
a lovely old lady I visited during my first few weeks in England made Coronation chicken from scratch for me. It was on a hot summer day and perfect for the occasion. The horrible industrial concoction found in supermarkets as "sandwich filler" has nothing to do with it. That sounds like what I call chicken salad -- cubed cooked chicken with mayonnaise, chopped celery, and seasonings. Is that what it is? That reminds me of cheap eating places when I was young. You could get chicken salad or egg salad (called egg mayonnaise in the UK, right?) sandwiches, or grilled cheese sandwiches. This was cheap, fast, homestyle food. I think they all went the way of drugstore lunch counters.
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Post by Don Cuevas on May 14, 2010 1:35:38 GMT
Pimiento Cheese (spread) sandwiches are still popular in the South of the U.S. But most are dreadful, in my experience. There is a drugstore, Woods' Pharmacy, in Mountain View, AR, where we used to live. I think that you could get a grilled pimiento cheese sandwich there at the old fashioned lunch counter and soda fountain.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2010 2:02:33 GMT
I started to list pimento cheese above, but I knew that Don Cuevas would bust my chops about it. That's because almost all pimento cheese available for purchase is made with pasturized processed cheese product, whereas the version that I most know & love is made at home with real cheese.
This is not to say that I've not willingly eaten the supermarket product at times, but I have a low streak.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2010 2:05:37 GMT
Salmon croquettes with cream gravy.
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Post by lagatta on May 14, 2010 2:28:45 GMT
Coronation chicken also contained curry powder (remember, the Jewel in the Crown - hey, conquering a civilisation much older and much much larger than you are!) For us colonials in the benighted 1950s, it was a very sophisticated cosmopolitan dish!
I've never made (tinned) salmon croquettes that satisfied me. Perhpas cream gravy is the solution, not that I know how to make that either.
Whenever I've made the kind of sauce called "gravy" it has been from the bits of congealed juices, fats and proteins at the bottom of a roating pan. (Yum, and very old-fashioned home cooking). But perhaps it has a different meaning in the US South, is it like a béchamel sauce?
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2010 3:42:26 GMT
What you describe is gravy, but cream gravy is more béchamel-y. I believe there is even such a thing as hamburger gravy in a cream base. I don't think rogue gravies are specific to the south, either. Probably one could do a study of institutional cooking featuring gloppy sauces in the gravy family.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2010 5:23:43 GMT
Gloppy sauces are generally used to hide the terrible ingredients, hence the common school term "mystery meat."
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2010 5:26:44 GMT
Isn't S.O.S bound with a creamish gravy?
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2010 7:43:10 GMT
Are you referring to "chipped beef on toast"?
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Post by tillystar on May 14, 2010 10:05:03 GMT
Regular old fashioned favorites at home are sausage and mash, shepherd's pie, rice pudding, mince and dumplings. Cold weather food!
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2010 10:50:48 GMT
I can send you some cold weather, Tilly, if you don't have enough.
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Post by tillystar on May 14, 2010 11:21:41 GMT
That's very generous of you but it is still cold enough for all the rib sticking food. We might be dangerously near salad weather by mid-July and I will get back to you then.
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