Thursday, July 8, 2010

Spry!Salmon Casserole, Spry!Oven-Creamed Potatoes, green salad, and Spry!Pineapple Upiside-Down Cake

Yes, the day has finally come. Spry. Glorious Spry. Sweet, creamy, digestible Spry.

IMG_2942.jpg picture by seshet27

Salmon Casserole
Unusual seasonings make this dish so savory! Yet it costs so little.

1 pound can salmon
1/4 cup Spry
1 teaspoon onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Salmon liquor
Milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 egg, slightly beaten

Remove bones and skin from salmon and separate into flakes. . . . Melt Spry in frying pan. Add onion and cook until yellow. Add bread crumbs, salt, and pepper and brown lightly. . . . Put salmon liquor into a cup and pour in enough milk to make 1 cup. Combine salmon, crumbs, and liquid. . . . Add lemon juice, lemon rind, parsley, and egg, and blend, being careful not to mash salmon. . . . Pour into 8-inch Sprycoated. . . . Bake in moderately hot oven (375 degrees F.) for 30 minutes. Serves 6.

IMG_2944.jpg picture by seshet27

Friday Supper Special. Serve Salmon Casserole with Oven-creamed Potatoes (page 30) and a crisp green salad. For dessert, remember Pineapple Upside-down Cake (page 45).


White or Cream Sauce
A nice smooth sauce or creamed vegetables, fish, and meats. Dandy for scalloped dishes, too.

2 tablespoons Spry
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
1 cup milk or thin cream

Melt Spry in saucepan; add flour, salt, and pepper, and blend well. . . . Add milk gradually, stirring constantly, and continue stirring and cooking until thickened. . . . Makes 1 cup sauce.


IMG_2939.jpg picture by seshet27
Vegetable Casserole
Seasoned just enough and browned to a turn with a toppin' of melted cheese.

2 cups White Sauce (above)
1 teaspoon onion juice
1 cup cooked potatoes, diced
1 cup cooked green peas
1 cup cooked carrots, cut lengthwise
1/4 pound cheese, sliced

Combine white sauce and onion juice. . . . Add potatoes, peas, and carrots, and mix lightly. Turn into Sprycoated casserole. . . . Lay slices of cheese over top. . . . Bake in moderately hot oven (375 degrees F.) 30 minutes, or until cheese is melted and slightly browned. . . . Serves 6.

IMG_2943.jpg picture by seshet27

Oven-creamed Potatoes. Omit onion and add 2 tablespoons horse-radish to white sauce. Use 3 cups cooked diced potatoes; omit peas and carrots.


IMG_2946.jpg picture by seshet27

Pineapple Upside-down Cake
Easy to make and looks real dressy with pineapple and cherries glistenin' on top.

1/3 cup Spry
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, unbeaten
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup canned pineapple juice
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
5 slices canned pineapple
5 maraschino cherries (optional)

Combine Spry, salt, and vanilla; add sugar gradually and cream well. . . . Add egg and beat thoroughly. . . . Add baking powder to flour and sift 3 times. Add small amounts of flour to creamed mixture, alternately with pineapple juice, mixing after each addition until smooth. . . . Sprinkle brown sugar on bottom of 8 x 8-inch pan rubbed liberally with Spry. . . . Arrange pineapple on sugar, put cherries in centers of slices, and pour batter over all. . . . Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) 50 to 60 minutes. . . . Serve upside down with whipped cream. . . . Serves 8 to 10.


Verdict:

DISCLAIMER: Spry is no longer sold, so if Aunt Jenny asks, any negative feelings I have about this food are a direct result of using Shur-Saving shortening instead of smooth, creamy, digestible Spry. Please, Aunt Jenny. Forgive me.

Salmon Casserole: This is a LOT of crumbs for this amount of salmon. Seriously, a lot. And I'm not sure which "unusual" seasonings Aunt Jenny is talking about. The parsley? The salt and pepper? Maybe she forgot to include them. It would've been a lot better with some good tartar sauce, but I didn't have any. Lame. Mainly, it was a bready fish-flavored loaf. Loaves, again. This cookbook has got to be from the 1940's-60's, what with the love of loaves of stuff. Bread should come in loaves. Meat can come in loaves, in the form of meatloaf. Other things, shaky ground, Aunt Jenny, shaky ground.

Oven-Creamed Potatoes: Sooooo bland! Usually this sort of thing would be made with butter instead of shortening, and butter has a lot more flavor. Shortening is designed to be tasteless. The horseradish... yeah. It was horseradishy. Now that was an unusual flavor! I think it ate the cheese, because I couldn't find it or taste it once it melted. That is too bad, because I love me some cheese. At least the potatoes didn't come in a loaf.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake: Mmmmmm. Cake. Not the best pineapple upside-down cake I've ever had, it's a lot better with butter, but still good. I ate one piece. An hour later, the rest of the cake had disappeared and husband looked really contented.

4 comments:

Nonna said...

Wow, a whole meal ??? Aunt Jenny would be so proud but I kinda gagged myself ( except for the cake ) and don't worry, I won't tell her you didn't use Spry !

Jana said...

If you look, the salmon loaf and potatoes didn't actually have that much Spry. It was mainly to fry up a whole ONE TEASPOON OF ONION. One? Really? Sigh.

Mercury Gray said...

I came to this blog via Jane Austen Today's link to your regency dinner on the 2nd of September and as you can probably tell, I'm now about four pages deep in your older posts. This blog is fantastic! You might be aware of this, but there's a man by the name of James Lileks who collects old cookbooks and makes fun of the terrible food photography (and sometimes terrible food) of the 1950s. He has the whole Spry cookbook in his book. It's called "The Gallery of Regretable Food." I'm pretty sure he's got a website, too.

Jana said...

Yes, his website is seriously funny! Welcome!