Family recipe Monday: mystery side dishes

In going through the family recipes for the Simple Gifts cookbook, we found a few that have us stymied. This is not hard to do, admittedly. Recipes are very much like an encrypted history of their time and place, and, without the key, one is left wondering what is going on. If you are collecting family recipes and the oldest cooks in the family are still around, get them on video talking about their recipes, for goodness sake. I wish that we had. Instead, we have strange questions that no one in this crowd has been able to answer.

Lubbock First Methodist Church Hawaiian rice

2 cups uncooked rice
4 cups water
2 tsp salt

Cook and set aside. Sauté in 3 T butter or oil:
1 medium onion, chopped fine
½ cup chopped celery
1 package frozen, chopped broccoli, thawed
Salt to taste

Add 1 can cream of chicken soup, 1 can of milk (approximately) and 1 small jar Cheez Whiz to the sautéed mixture and blend into a sauce.

To serve:
1. Pour sauce over rice.
or 2. Mix sauce and rice.
or 3. Place in baking dish in 350* F oven for about 19 minutes.

Question 1: What the heck makes this recipe "Hawaiian?"
Question 2: What is its connection to the church?
Question 3: Isn't "19 minutes" oddly specific?

It is a puzzlement.

Mystery dish (it has no name)

1 lb. sharp cheddar cheese
1 small can green chiles
1 small can ripe olives
Dash black pepper
3 T vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 T sugar
Dash hot sauce
1 small can tomato sauce
½ cup cooking oil
1 small minced onion

Mix and let set overnight. Bake at 350* F.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

Question 4: What the heck is this dish? It doesn't even have a name, and we have no idea what the results would be.

 

Risi-bisi

Fry 4 slices bacon crisp. Remove from pan. Add chopped onion and sauté until golden brown. Remove. Add 1 ½ cups rice; sauté 2-3 minutes, stirring until heated and slightly brown. Add 2 T salt, 1 small package frozen peas, 3 T parsley flakes, 2 ½ cups chicken bouillon or beef consommé, and 1 cup water. Add bacon and onions. Stir well. Cover tightly. Simmer over low flame for 1 hour--mixture should be dry.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

Question 5: OK, we can see that this is basically a rice casserole, but how do you pronounce its name, and where did that come from?

Beans

2 cups beans
5 cups water
5 cloves garlic
2 T olive oil
1/8 tsp cayenne
1 tsp sea salt

Put in oven at 200* F until tender.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

Question 6: Can a recipe get any more basic/cryptic than this? It's not one of the oldest ones, calling as it does for sea salt, cayenne and olive oil....but it's amazingly terse on the details.

If you have any insights into the Six Questions of the Mystery Recipes, please drop us a note. Happy Monday.

Family recipe Monday: chicken and pasta

Left to right: Vada Brooks Johnson, unknown child, Coy McLean Brooks, Mary Marcella Walker Brooks, Lubbock, 1940s. Daughter, daughter-in-law and mother.

We hit the Farmers' Market in Founders Park on Saturday, the first one of the summer. It's still a bit early in the produce year up here, but not too much so. Results: rhubarb, asparagus, radishes, a nice Hutterite chicken, and two triple-berry cinnamon rolls for breakfast. The rolls were on sale at a place that primarily sells fresh produce, therefore they were automatically health food by association. Honest. The tamales on sale will also be pure health food, for the same reason. Now we're trying to figure out if we make the resultant rhubarb pie with peaches and/or blackberries included, or if we leave the rhubarb in splendid isolation. That'll be health food, too, as it contains fresh fruit. We are practically exploding with health around here.

This particular chicken will be roasted to save all that free-range goodness, but the Simple Gifts files are full of other suggestions. Pairing chicken and pastry or pasta is especially frequent. Here is the classic family recipe that no one ever wrote down until Shirley and I sat down and pieced it together.

Chicken and dumplings

Boil 1 chicken (pieces) in 3 gallons water. Remove chicken and shred meat from bone. Reserve meat and discard bone and skin.

Make the dumplings by cutting Crisco into flour with pastry cutter until it looks like coarse meal. Add just enough ice water to make dough stick together and roll into ball. Roll out thin and cut into strips with knife. Cut strips into squares (about 2”) and add to boiling broth. When done, add 1/2 gal. milk to broth. Serve hot.
--Mary Marcella Walker Brooks, Vada Brooks Johnson

Another classic of country cooking and a comfort food without equal. This recipe was never really written down; it was one of those things that was just passed down. You're supposed to know this stuff genetically, I think.

Note: we usually leave the chicken meat on the side so that people can add as much as they like (or don’t). It can just as easily be added back to the broth before serving. The only other spices added to the broth might be salt and pepper to taste, and that is often left out of the cooking and placed on the side instead. I don't add milk to the broth, personally. You may, if you are not a strict traditionalist, prefer fresh or dried herbs in the dumplings; I can recommend lemon thyme highly.

This recipe makes Gene and me nostalgic for the Delaware diner we frequented. Sunday mornings featured all-you-can-eat chicken and dumplings starting at 10, a special not listed on the menu.You just had to know about it. Gene makes careful note of whether dumplings are floaters or sinkers, as good Pennsylvania Dutch cooks prefer the former. I can't say I ever noticed that there was a difference, possibly because this recipe makes sinkers and that's all we knew. There are slippery dumplings, too. Who knew? Shirley notes that, in her latter years, Vada substituted strips of flour tortillas for rolled-out dough dumplings as a work- and time-saver.

Here is a great crypto-classic. This makes a casserole, in case you're curious what the outcome is.

Chicken tettrazini

1 large chicken, cook and remove from bone
1 large package spaghetti or macaroni
1 lb. cheese
1 can pimiento
1 can mushrooms
1 can mushroom soup
½ can ripe olives
1 large onion, celery and 1 bell pepper, cooked in bacon drippings

Cook spaghetti in chicken broth.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

That's it. Those are the directions. What are you waiting for? This one practically needs a full concordance, doesn't it? You are going to cook the chicken in water until it is done and leaves you with a lovely stock/broth. After removing the chicken to cool and debone, you are going to use the stock to cook the pasta. Strain the pasta from the stock and save the stock for another day. Its job is done for now. Layer the ingredients with pasta first, then everything else in order, repeating as needed, with a layer of cheese on top. Bake the casserole at 350* for 30 minutes or so, until the top is nicely golden. This is enough for two casseroles, in accordance with the casserole rules.

The cheese is your call; I'd use a nice white cheese like a Gruyere or buffalo Mozzarella, but I'm sure that this recipe originally used a Cheddar more on the mild side than the sharp side, affectionately known as rat trap cheese. Obviously, you can use something other than bacon drippings to saute those vegetables. The can of mushroom soup puts this recipe firmly in the 1950s, as does the "pimmento," as does the pasta itself, which arrived relatively late in West Texas. This is a good solid Sunday night supper. Remember, dinner is at noon; supper is at night.

The third and final recipe today is another winner from our wonderful Aunt Coy. You can tell by the various cards' condition just how popular it has been. It has those 1950s ingredients, too.

Aunt Coy’s chicken spaghetti

1 fat hen
1 green pepper, chopped
3 stems celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 boxes spaghetti
1 can pimientos
1 can mushrooms
½ lb. cheese, grated
1 can mushroom soup

Cook chicken until tender in chicken broth salt and pepper to taste. Cool chicken, then remove from bone and cut into small pieces. Remove 1/4 cup fat from chicken broth and fry pepper, celery and onion in it until it is tender. Cook spaghetti until tender in chicken broth (add more water if needed) add chopped chicken and pre-cooked pepper, celery and onion. Place in casserole, cover with grated cheese, heat in slow oven until cheese is melted. (Good made day before and warmed on serving day.)
--Coy McLean Brooks

Happy Monday. Remember to keep one and share one.

Family recipe Monday: casseroles: one to have, one to share

"Casserole: A dish or pot made from a material such as glass, cast iron, aluminum, or earthenware in which food is baked and, often, served. The word, which may also refer to the food itself...is from the French and was first printed in English in 1708....Cooking in such dishes has always been a part of most nation's gastronomy, but the idea of casserole cooking as a one-dish meal became popular in America in the twentieth century, especially in the 1950s when new forms of lightweight metal and glassware appeared on the market. The virtues of easy-to-prepare meals were increasingly promoted in the women's magazines of the era, thereby supposedly freeing the housewife from the lengthy drudgery of the kitchen....By the 1970s casserole cookery took on a less-than sophisticated image..."
---The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p.59)

We have many casserole recipes in the Simple Gifts files, most of which we remember from childhood but have not ourselves prepared as adults. And I have to wonder if we are missing out on something that way. The technique is ancient and cross-cultural, the approach is simple, and the results can be wonderful. Certainly up here, in prime hotdish and potluck territory, the concept has never waned. I have a quilting pattern for a hotdish warmer and carrier in one, which is a necessary item up here.

A casserole is a dish for a group, whether family or friends. We seem to be hard-wired to share food with those we care about, as a way of fostering good feelings and showing love and care.

Here are a few good ones from the files.

Cheese scalloped corn casserole

2-3 eggs
2 1-lb. cans cream-style corn
1 cup milk
1 cup cracker crumbs
½ cup chopped onions
½ cup green peppers
1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper

Beat eggs in bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour in two greased casseroles. Cook at 350* F for 35 minutes.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

This is notable on a couple of points: there is no canned soup used as a filler/binder (that did not start in earnest until the 1950s, and this one is older), and it makes two casseroles (one for home and one to freeze for a future potluck, church supper, or food to take to a friend's house in response to illness or death). Casseroles keep well and improve in flavor the second day. You could have this on hand for a busy night when everyone would be tired and hungry, and it would be wonderful.

Here is one, daring for its time and place (a cup of sherry?! in a casserole?! in West Texas?!), from a friend of my grandmother's.

Audrey’s chicken casserole

1 6-lb. hen, cook until tender {in water to cover}. Cut in bite size pieces with scissors. Pour a bit of stock over chicken. Save the bottom of sauce for spaghetti. 1 stick oleo, melt over very low heat. Sauté 1 green pepper and one chopped garlic head* in butter. Cook very slowly, stirring constantly. Add 5 T flour slowly, cook a bit, stirring. Add 2 cups milk at room temperature. Cook slowly, making a sauce. Add 2 cans mushroom soup, 2 jars pimentos, a bit of garlic salt, 2 T Worcestershire sauce and 1 small can mushrooms. When mixture bubbles, add 1 cup sherry. Simmer a few minutes. Add chicken to sauce and blend in 6 cups grated cheddar cheese. Save 1 cup cheese for top. Stir until melted and add ¾ cup Parmesan cheese and a dash of pepper. Simmer 4 or 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 F. Cook one 16-oz pkg. of spaghetti in broth and rinse with cold water. Add half the spaghetti in baking dish and half the sauce. Repeat until all is used. Sprinkle other cup of cheese on top and cook 10 or 15 minutes until cheese is melted. Makes two casseroles.

Note on original card: “Audrey only used 3 C. of cheese and rum instead of sherry.”
--Audrey Smith

*I think that this should be "clove." It could be a little overwhelming on the garlic front otherwise, though that cup of sherry (or rum) might smooth things out. AFTER you put the scissors down.

Note that, once again, it makes two casseroles. One to have, one to share.

Finally, here is a one-dish version of squash casserole. A great thing to have in late summer, when the zucchini and yellow squash start swarming....you can double this and have one for you, one for the neighbor who foisted off gave you the squash in the first place.

Squash casserole

5-6 medium-sized yellow or white squash
1 medium onion

Cook together until tender; mash. Add 3 well-beaten eggs, 1 3-oz. package cream cheese (crumbled), salt and pepper to taste, and 1 tsp sugar. Pour into greased baking dish. Crush Ritz or saltine crackers, enough to cover top of casserole. Melt ¾ stick oleo and add crackers. Sprinkle over top of casserole. Bake at 350 F until crackers brown. In Pyrex 325 F.

Pyrex was a dream come true for cooks of my grandmother's generation. You can find more about its history here.

Happy Monday. Remember to keep one and share one, whatever it is.