Garnish - More Chive Flowers

Chive flowers add color and fun to an omelet. (photo by Joachim)

I still have a few nice chive flowers, so decided to use them as an omelet garnish. Usually, I put the overlapping parts of the omelet on the underside. This time, I kept them up and sort of tucked the chive flower in, using parsley for a bit more greenery. I like the effect and the color contrasts.

Garnish - Chive Flowers on Salad

Adding the veggies and cheese and topping with a chive flower garnish greatly improves a side salad. (photo by Courtney)

I'm making good on my promise to myself to really work on plating. Chive flowers are in season, and I love their sharp snap, so I decided to use them for a garnish on a salad. I also used a different approach to assembling the salad. Normally, I combine all the ingredients and toss them with the dressing. To improve the look, I tossed only the lettuce leaves with a basic balsamic mustard vinaigrette and plated that. Then I added the sliced radishes, diced celery, snipped chives and crumbled cheese on top. Finally, I arranged two chives, one fully open and one still in bud, on the top of each plated pile. I really liked this look better, plus it had the advantage of allowing me to apportion the various inclusions based on what people like (for example, Joachim doesn't really care for radishes and I love them, so I took the lion's share).

1966 WDEC - Gelatin, Part 1: Seafood Cocktail Salad

Seafood cocktail salad make an easy and cool one-dish meal. (photo by Joachim)

What can I say -- I'm a sucker for molded foods. A lot of the recipes in the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery call for "Flavored Gelatin," by which they mean Jello-like sweetened dessert mix, and those I probably will skip. But many do not, and a lot, like aspic and jellied soups, are hardly ever found today. Those, I will enjoy. I'm going more or less in order through the 5-page section, and appetizers and soups come first.

Seafood Cocktail Salad
(to serve 6)
1-3/4 cups tomato juice
1 envelope (1/4 ounce) unflavored gelatin
1 teaspoon instant minced onion
1/2 bay leaf
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1/2 cup diced celery
2 pimientos, chopped
2 cups cooked shrimps, flaked crabmeat, or lobster (alone or in combination)
Salt and pepper to taste
Shredded lettuce
Mayonnaise

Put tomato juice in saucepan and sprinkle wiht gelatin. Add onion and bay leaf; heat, stirring, until gelatin dissolves. Remove bay leaf and add next 6 ingredients. Season. Pour into 6 individual molds and chill until firm. Unmold on lettuce. Serve with Mayonnaise.

Cooking Notes: I halved the recipe but kept the original amounts of onion, Worcestershire, and horseradish. Because it's so much more of a value, I bought a pound of gelatin in bulk. I used an apothecary scale to measure the gelatin; 1-1/2 teaspoons was the same as 1/8 ounce, 3.5 grams, or half a package of Knox.

An apothecary scale confirmed that one half a packet of unflavored gelatin is equivalent to 1-1/2 teaspoons. (photo by Courtney)

The bay seemed utterly superfluous, so I added two drops of bay oil to make it more than just something waved over the pot. Lacking pimientos, I diced about 2 tablespoons of water chestnuts and used some sliced pimiento-stuffed olives as garnish. I used canned tiny north sea shrimp for the flesh.

Eating Notes: This was really good, and would have IMHO been even better with just a hint of hot sauce. The texture was perfect, with no big gelatin pockets and the filling distributed evenly. We mashed up everything with the mayonnaise and ate it like a main dish salad, and that worked quite well. It could also be rolled into a big lettuce leaf as a wrap.

1966 WDEC - Skipping the Heirloom Gateau

The "cake for a good marriage" is a good example of a proper occasion for an heirloom gateau. (photo by Ayako via Wikimedia)

I previously made a really excellent flourless chocolate-chestnut cake that was called a "Gateau," but it has nothing on the extremely complex (and large) "occasion" cakes included in the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery under the "Gateau" heading. The "splendid creation destined to add glamour to a party" looks fabulous, and perhaps when I have an occasion to warrant such a creation, I'll give it a try. Until then I'll probably stick to the easier sources of sweet gratification.

1966 WDEC: Garnish

Too many garnishes muddy the presentation of a molded shrimp salad. (photo by Joachim)

I'm pleased to see almost five pages of the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery devoted to garnishing. I love Japanese food's emphasis on appearance, be it extravagant sushi or cute rice ball molds, and I try, especially at breakfast, to have a bit of fun with the arrangements of cut vegetables and the like. But plating really isn't my strong suit and is something I would like to work on. The WDEC editors give a lot of ideas, from sauteed bananas to anchovies to more traditional radish rosettes.

While I'm not going to go through them as a block, I have decided to make a more concerted effort to garnish my food and improve my plating in general, and will document the results, which hopefully will improve with time! In my first attempt, too many garnishes make a molded shrimp salad look like an otherworldly landscape devastated by a mayonnaise-spewing Vesuvius. Honestly, this kind of was my intent, but I thought "spewing volcano" would end up looking a lot cooler than it did.

1966 WDEC - Garlic, Part 9: Shrimp Saute

Shrimp sauteed with a flamed garlic cream sauce makes a subtle and elegant dish. (photo by Joachim)

More flames! And this is the last of the "Garlic" recipes from the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery I'll be trying. I made everything except the garlic butter and associated "Italian Garlic Bread" and the pesto, which looks like a decent recipe but which must wait until my basil plants are a little bit bigger!

Shrimp Saute
(for one pound of shrimp)
1 pound shrimp
1/2 cup butter
1 crushed garlic clove
1/4 cup brandy
1/2 cup heavy cream (optional)
Salt and pepper
Toast

Shell and devein shrimps. Melt butter, add garlic and shrimps. Cook quickly until pink. Add brandy, flame. Add cream if you wish more sauce. Season and serve at once on toast.

Cooking Notes: We went for the "more sauce" option, used two garlic cloves, and omitted the toast. All else to spec.

Eating Notes: This is an elegant and a surprisingly subtle dish; while it was cooking it smelled like it would be very garlicky, but the finished product was very light, with hints of brandy, garlic and cream but nothing at all overwhelming. The shrimp itself is so mild I would not recommend this with anything heavy or strongly flavored. I served it with baby bok choy, which soaked up the extra sauce very nicely and did not intrude on the taste.

1966 WDEC - Garlic, Part 8: Algerian-Style Eggs

While this egg pie may or may not be "Algerian," it is definitely a good and easy omelet alternative. (photo by Joachim)

I have no idea if these baked eggs would be at all recognized as "Algerian-style" by an Algerian, but they make a nice breakfast.

Algerian-Style Eggs
(to serve 4)
1-1/2 cups drained canned tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 green pepper, sliced
2 Tablespoons butter
6 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper

Heat tomatoes with garlic. Put in buttered 8-inch pie pan. Cook green pepper in butter until tender. Put on top of tomatoes. Beat eggs with salt and pepper until well mixed. Pour over tomatoes. Bake in preheated 350F/180C oven for 25 minutes, or until set.

Cooking Notes: Usually for Saturday breakfast I have a 2-egg omelet and Joachim a 3-egg one, so I used 5 eggs and divided the result accordingly. I also reduced the salt to a rounded quarter teaspoon. Everything else, including cooking time, I kept the same.

Eating Notes: 1/4 of the resulting pie (even if made with 6 eggs) would be a bit on the shy side if this is being served as a one-dish meal. I'd be more inclined to figure one pie to serve three, or two generously. The flavors are straightforward and the fresh garlic comes through strongly, balancing the pepper nicely. You could easily play with this basic recipe by adding mushrooms, topping with cheese or breadcrumbs, changing the spicings, etc. With olive oil substituting for butter, it also would make a filling dish that is both gluten- and dairy-free.