Old-Fashioned Chicken Pie with Asparagus Tips

Chicken Pie with Asparagus Tips

Now that winter is over, and April has finally arrived, I find that I crave both comfort foods and spring vegetables. I think that I’ve found the perfect hundred-year-old recipe: Chicken Pie with Asparagus Tips.

The Chicken Pie had an old-fashioned goodness, and the asparagus tips made a lovely garnish.

Here’s the original recipe: Chicken Pie with Asparagus Tips

Recipe for Chicken Pie with Asparagus Tips — Source: American Cookery (March, 1925)

The recipe does not specify whether green asparagus or white asparagus should be used, but the picture in the old magazine looks like the recipe author used white asparagus. I seldom see white asparagus at the store (and when I do it is very expensive), so I used green asparagus. I actually think that green asparagus looks better than white when used in this dish.

I think that “rich milk” refers to light cream, so I used half and half, though milk would work fine in this recipe. I added mushrooms, carrots, and peas.

Chicken Pie with Asparagus Tips

Servings: 4 - 6
Time: 45 minutes
Difficulty: moderate
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1/4 cup butter + 1 tablespoon butter, melted

1/3 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup half and half (or use milk)

2 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced

1 4-ounce can mushrooms, stems and pieces (drained)

1/2 cup sliced carrots, cooked

1/2 cup green peas (I used frozen peas.)

asparagus tips to garnish (I used the tips from approximately 1/3 pound of asparagus.)

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Preheat oven to 425◦ F. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour, paprika, and salt. Gradually, add the chicken broth and half and half while stirring constantly. Continue stirring until the sauce begins to thicken. Remove 1/2 cup of the sauce from the pan, set aside. Stir the cooked chicken, mushrooms, carrots, and peas; continue heating until hot and bubbly. Put the mixture into a baking dish, then pour the reserved sauce over the mixture. Spoon the 1 tablespoon of melted butter on top. Put in oven and bake until it is just beginning to brown (about 15- 20 minutes).

In the meantime, cook the asparagus tips. (I lightly steamed them.)

Remove the Chicken Pie from the oven and garnish with the asparagus tips.

Hundred-Year-Old Tip for Storing Egg Yolks

egg yolks in water Sometimes a recipe calls for just the egg whites, and I end up with a couple extra egg yolks that I’m never quite sure how to use. I probably shouldn’t admit it, but sometimes I just toss the extra yolks. However, eggs are now so expensive that I want to keep them and use them in a day or two when making scrambled eggs or some other dish. I was pleased to come across directions for keeping egg yolks in a hundred-year-old cookbook:

TO KEEP EGG YOLKS

Egg yolks, if they are unbroken, may be covered with water and kept for several days. The water should be changed daily.

Source – Home Economics and Cook Book: The Daily Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), Supplement – March 13, 1925

Old-Fashioned Nut Molasses Bars

I came across a hundred-year-old recipe for Nut Molasses Bars and decided to give it a try.

The cookies are a cross between cutout cookies and modern bar cookies. The dough is rolled out, then cut into bars, and topped with coconut and walnuts. They were tasty with just the right amount of spices and molasses.

Here is the original recipe:

Nut Molasses Bars — Source: The Home Makers’ Cooking School Cook Book (1925)

English walnuts are just the usual walnuts that are sold commercially. Unless walnuts are specifically labeled as black walnuts, they are English walnuts.

If the butter is softened before making this recipe, the water does not need to be boiling.

The cookie dough was extremely dry, so I added additional water to make it rollable.

I had trouble with the coconut and walnuts not adhering to the bars. To help make the topping stay put, I revised the recipe to say that the rolled cookie dough should be brushed with beaten egg white before the coconut and walnuts are sprinkled on it.

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Nut Molasses Bars

Servings: approx. 60 bars
Time: 40 minutes
Difficulty: moderate
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1/2 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup water + additional water, if needed

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup molasses

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon salt

3 2/3 cups flour

1 egg white, beaten

1/2 cup coconut

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350◦ F. Put butter, water, brown sugar, and molasses in a mixing bowl; stir. Add baking soda, ginger, cloves, and salt; stir to combine. Add flour, and stir. If the dough is too dry, add additional water until it holds together. (I had to add about 3/4 cup of additional water). Chill for 1/2 hour. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into 3 1/2 inch X 1 inch strips. Brush with egg white, then sprinkle with coconut and walnuts. Press the coconut and the walnuts firmly into the dough. Cut each strip into 3 pieces. Put the pieces on a prepared baking sheet. Bake 12 minutes.

http://www.ahundredyears.com

1925 Fannie Farmer Recipe Cabinet Advertisement

I have a wood recipe box that looks similar to the one in the picture. It was a gift at my wedding shower. Apparently, recipe boxes (or to use the term in in the old ad, “recipe cabinets”) have been considered good shower gifts for at least a hundred years. I wonder if brides today receive recipe boxes. I’m guessing not.

My recipe box and the cards in it are well worn. I’ve pulled recipes out of it on a regular basis for many years. It contains many special recipes that I got from my mother, mother-in-law, friends, and relatives. Each brings back lovely memories. My recipe box is not a Fannie Farmer one. It says on the bottom of my box that it is a Woodcroftery product.

Old-Fashioned Grapefruit Cocktail

Grapefruit Cocktail

The word “cocktail” generally brings to mind alcoholic beverages, but another definition of cocktail is ” a cold dish, often eaten at the start of a meal, consisting of small pieces of food.” According to the January, 1925 issue of American Cookery magazine, a fruit appetizer called Grapefruit Cocktail was served at many of the best hotel back then. Given this strong recommendation, I decided to make Grapefruit Cocktail.

It was easy to make. Grapefruit segments are cut into bite-sized pieces, then a little powdered sugar and juice from a jar of maraschino cherries is added. The mixture is served in an attractive serving cup or sherbet glass that is lined with lettuce and topped with a maraschino cherry.

The recommended way of serving Grapefruit Cocktail in a sherbet glass lined with lettuce makes an attractive presentation, but it has a very old-fashioned look. (When is the last time you’ve eaten fruit nested in lettuce leaves?) But the Grapefruit Cocktail was refreshing and very tasty with a nuanced burst of flavor provided by the maraschino cherry juice.

Here’s the original recipe:

Grapefruit Cocktail

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Grapefruit Cocktail

Servings: 2
Time: 15 minutes
Difficulty: easy
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1 grapefruit

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

1 teaspoon juice from a jar of maraschino cherries

lettuce

2 maraschino cherries

Peel the grapefruit, then divide into segments and cut each segment into thirds. Put into a bowl. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and add maraschino cherry juice; gently stir. Line serving cups or sherbet glasses with lettuce leaves, then fill with the grapefruit mixture. Garnish with a maraschino cherry on top.

http://www.ahundredyearsago.com

Hundred-Year-Old Suggestions for Serving Food to Sick Children

food on tray When caring for a sick child it is important to keep them hydrated and well-nourished. Often a child will eat little while complaining that nothing tastes good. An article on serving food to sick children in the January, 1925 issue of American Cookery began:

The sick child that loved his “land of the counterpane” in Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem by that name must have had a resourceful nurse or mother to prepare interesting food for him, or he would have been just as irritable as any other youngster, recovering from the measles or grippe.

My first reaction to the sentence was not about food for a sick child. Instead, I started digging deeply into my brain trying to remember what “counterpane” and “grippe” meant. They’re words I’m familiar with, but that I don’t think that I’ve heard since I was a child. “Counterpane” is another word for bedspread. I did an online search and found Stevenson’s lovely poem: The Land of the Counterpane. “Grippe” is an old-fashioned word for flu.

The article continues with suggestions for making food more appealing to sick children:

The appearance of the tray has much to do with tempting the convalescent child. For instance, by folding a tent out of white wrapping paper, and standing it over the dishes, commonplace foods become delicacies of interest, particularly if a tin soldier stands near the tent to “guard your health.”

A little girl would, likewise, eat her food with more gusto if her tray were covered with a box that could be used for a doll house after dinner.

One little girl, who was too ill to go to a picnic she had planned attending, enjoyed her supper that night just because her mother thought to bring it to her in a picnic basket.

Children who have eaten toasted sandwiches in the sandwich shops will be delighted with three-deckers stuck together with toothpicks, and will eat them, even when the sandwich filling is composed of oft-despised scrambled eggs or stewed prunes.

Graham crackers are good, as well as nutritious, when served with milk. Try putting a few drops of hot syrup on the graham crackers, and standing an animal cracker on each one. It will be lots of fun to eat the circus parade along with the milk.

One child even learned to like grapefruit when his mother put the juice in a bottle, and let him pretend it was medicine.

To encourage the finicky child to eat up all the food on his tray, a meal ticket may be issued and every time the food is all eaten the ticket is punched. When a certain number of “meals” have been punched the child may be given a small reward.

American Cookery (January, 1925)

Old-Fashioned Shamrock Salad with French Dressing with Mustard

Shamrock Salad

Hundred-year-old magazines sometimes have holiday recipes. For St. Patrick’s Day, the March, 1925 issue of American Cookery had a recipe for Shamrock Salad with French Dressing with Mustard. I decided to give it a try.

Shamrock Salad is made by stuffing green pepper halves with a cream cheese and olive mixture. The stuffed peppers are refrigerated for several hours, then sliced. The French Dressing with Mustard is very different from modern bottled French dressings, but it was a nice oil and vinegar dressing.

The Shamrock Salad with French Dressing with Mustard was good, but had a very old-fashioned look and taste.

Here’s the original recipe:

Shamrock Salad

The old recipe indicates that the serving size is four slices. I cannot imagine eating a serving that large of this salad; 1 slice – at most 2 – makes a nice serving size. Since I thought that the serving size was very large, I halved the recipe when I updated it.

For the French Dressing with Mustard, I used olive oil for the oil.

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Shamrock Salad with French Dressing with Mustard

Servings: 2 - 3
Time: 20 minutes active prep time
Difficulty: moderate
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1 large green pepper

1/2 tablespoon butter, softened

1 8-ounce container cream cheese (room temperature)

1/4 tablespoon cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 stuffed green olives, finely chopped

lettuce (optional)

Remove stem from the green pepper, then cut in half. (There will be a top half and a bottom half.) Remove pith and seeds. Set aside.

Put butter in a bowl and cream, then add the cream cheese, cream, and salt. Stir until smooth. Add the chopped olives and stir until the olives are evenly distributed in the mixture.

Use the cream cheese mixture to fill the green pepper halves. Press the mixture in firmly. Refrigerate the stuffed peppers until the cream cheese is firm (at least 4 hours)

Remove from refrigerator and with a sharp knife cut the stuffed peppers into thin slices (about 1/4 inch thick). If desired, put the slices on lettuce leaves. Serve with French Dressing with Mustard (see below).

French Dressing with Mustard

1 teaspoon brown mustard

1/8 teaspoon salt

dash of pepper

1 teaspoons onion, grated (optional)

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 tablespoon vinegar

Put the brown mustard in a bowl, then stir in the salt and pepper. If desired, add the grated onion and stir. Gradually add the olive oil while stirring rapidly, then add the vinegar and stir to combine.

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