My Great Recipes Collection

Great Recipes From the Past

Chinese Chicken Salad

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A sensational conversation salad, protein-packed with shredded chicken, mushrooms, bean sprouts, and fried cellophane noodles.

Cilantro: Available in produce section; also known as Chinese parsley, fresh coriander.

Translucent noodles: Available where Oriental foods are sold. Fry according to package directions.

Makes 6 servings.

Salads and Their Dressings, Section 2, Card 6

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Chinese Chicken Salad

Ingredients

For the salad

  • 3 pounds chicken breasts
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • 1 tablespoon sherry
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1 clove garlic pressed
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 cup sesame seed
  • 6 cups lettuce finely shredded
  • 1 bunch green onions minced
  • 1 bunch cilantro
  • 1/4 pound mushrooms sliced
  • 1 cup bean sprouts
  • 3 ounces translucent noodles
  • 1 cup salted peanuts chopped
  • Cherry tomatoes optional for garnish
  • Lemon slices optional for garnish

For the dressing

  • 1 teaspoon Chinese mustard
  • 2 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 teaspoons lemon rind
  • 4 teaspoons soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons sesame oil
  • 6 tablespoons salad oil
  • 1 tablespoon peanut butter

Instructions

Make the dressing.

  1. Combine all ingredients in blender and process until smooth. Set aside.

Make the salad.

  1. Mix together soy, salad oil, sherry, lemon juice, spices. Rub onto chicken. Place skin-side up in covered baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes. Cool meat in juices. Skin, bone, and shred into thin slices. Chill.
  2. Toast sesame seeds in frying pan over medium heat until golden brown.
  3. In salad bowl, arrange chicken meat, lettuce, green onions, cilantro, tomatoes, mushrooms, bean sprouts, and fried noodles. Add sesame seeds and 3/4 cup of the nuts. Toss with 1/2 cup of the dressing.
  4. Top with remaining nuts. Garnish with tomatoes, cilantro, slices of lemon. Pass additional dressing.

Shrimp Christmas Tree

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The Shrimp Christmas Tree comes from the Cross Country Cookery cookbook.  The recipe suggests that you could also make the Shrimp Christmas Tree with ivy leaves. For summer you might try fresh strawberries and serve with bowls of powdered sugar so guests can dip their own.

This makes quite attractive center piece and is a conversational item!

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Shrimp Christmas Tree

Servings 12 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 lb frozen shrimp peeled and deveined
  • 2 quart water
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 4 large bunches curly endive
  • 1 styrofoam cone - 2 1/2 foot high
  • 1 styrofoam square 12x12x1
  • 1 small box round toothpicks

Instructions

  1. Place frozen shrimp in salted boiling water. Let shrimp return to boiling. Cook from 2-3 min. Do not overcook. Drain and chill.

  2.  Separate and wash endive. Drain well. Chill.

  3. Place cone in center of styrofoam square and draw circle around the base of the cone. Cover base and cone with overlapping leaves of endive. Fasten endive to styrofoam with tooth pick halves. Start at the outside edge of the base and work up. Cover fully with greens to resemble Xmas tree.
  4. Attach shrimp to tree with toothpicks. Provide cocktail sauce for dunking.

Cucumber and Onion Salad

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When cucumbers are garden fresh, you can prepare this salad without peeling them. Later in the year, when they have a waxy coating, peel the cucumbers. This salad looks pretty served as individual servings on a bed of tender leaf lettuce. For crisp cucumber marinate only 1 hour.

Good served with poached, baked, or barbecued fish; barbecued chicken, roast turkey, meat balls, meat loaf.

Save the marinade and use to flavor a second batch of the salad.

For the cucumbers, use 3 cucumbers 6-inches long or 2 European style cucumbers about 10-inches long each.

Makes 4 servings. For 2 servings, half of the ingredients. For 8 servings, double the ingredients but use only 1 1/2 times the marinade.

Salads and Their Dressings, Section 2, Card 5

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Cucumber and Onion Salad

Ingredients

For the salad

  • 3 cucumbers 6-inches long
  • 1 bunch green onions

For the marinade

  • 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon dill weed
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon white pepper

Instructions

  1. Slice cucumbers thing; use thinnest blade of food processor if available. Turn into bowl.
  2. Slice green onions as thinly as possible. Add to the cucumbers.
  3. In a small bowl, mix marinade ingredients. Pour over onions and cucumbers. Turn with spatula to coat all pieces. Marinade 1 hour or more.
  4. Lift cucumbers from marinade. Serve on lettuce leaves. Or, to serve buffet style, drain off some of the marinade and put cucumbers into a pretty bowl. Garnish with tomato wedges if desired.

Tomato Catsup

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This handwritten recipe for Tomato Catsup comes from the Red Plastic Recipe Box collection that I got at an estate sale a few years ago. This sounds like a great way to use up the oodles of tomatoes growing in the garden this summer.

handwritten tomato catsup recipe

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Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

  • 1/2 bushel tomatoes
  • 6 large onions
  • 4 red peppers finely chopped
  • 3/4 teaspoon whole cloves
  • 2 teaspoons stick cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon whole allspice
  • 1 nutmeg
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup salt
  • 1 1/2 quarts white vinegar

Instructions

  1. Take a large kettle.
  2. Wash and slice tomaotes and let simmer.
  3. Put through food chopped oions and pepper.
  4. Add to the tomatoes, then spice, vinegar, salt, and sugar. Boil slowly for two hours. Stirring often.
  5. Shove through sieve.
  6. Put back to boil and boil till thick.
  7. Put into bottles.

Curried Cauliflowerettes

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Take your cauliflower and curry it…with yogurt. Feel free to spice it up as much as you want.
Don’t you just love the word, “cauliflowerettes?” It’s used a few times on this card.
Chrysanthemum in this case refers to a drink, not to the ubiquitous flower.
This is Apertifs, Card 29 of the 2-in-1 International Recipe Card Collection.

Chrysanthemum

2 jiggers dry white vermouth
1 jigger Benedictine
1/3 jigger Pernod
Rinse 6-ounce cocktail glass with Pernod and discard excess Pernod. Stir vermouth and Benedictine with ice and strain into glass. Garnish with orange twist.

Sweet Chrysanthemum

Follow instructions above but substitute sweet red vermouth for dry white vermouth.

Faded Chrysanthemum

Follow instructions above for Chrysanthemum but substitute sweet white vermouth for dry white vermouth.
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Curried Cauliflower

Ingredients

Cauliflower

  • 1 medium cauliflower
  • 2 tablespoons cooking oil
  • 1 tablespoon curry powder
  • 1 medium onion chopped
  • 1 medium green pepper chopped
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 1 cup plain yogurt

Orange Chutney

  • 1 12- ounce jar marmalade
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon curry powder
  • 1/4 cup raisins

Instructions

Make the cauliflower

  1. Separate cauliflower into individual cauliflowerettes and set aside.
  2. Heat oil in heavy skillet. Brown curry powder quickly, about 1 minute. Add onions and green pepper and saute until onions are translucent. Add water, tomato paste, ginger, cayenne, and cardamom. Simmer uncovered 20 minutes.
  3. Add cauliflowerettes. Stir thoroughly and simmer covered 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.
  4. Stir in yogurt and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour to permit cauliflowerettes to absorb flavors.
  5. Remove cauliflowerettes from skillet, tapping lightly to shake off excess sauce, and arrange on serving plate. Serve with Orange Chutney.

Make the Orange Chutney

  1. Combine all in a saucepan and heat until raisins are soft and plump. Serve warm.