Something Different for Christmas
A Unique Christmas Dinner and Dessert - Following is a collection of recipes for every facet of a unique Christmas dinner consisting of entree, main course, dessert, and table decorations.
Christmas Canapé
SELECT as many thin slices of salami as there are people to be served.
Shape each slice like a quarter circle and then roll into a cornucopia.
Fill with mushrooms sliced, sauted in butter and mixed with white sauce made with cream.
Sprinkle mushrooms with grated cheese, put in oven to become heated through and serve on squares of buttered toast.
Stuffing for Roast Goose Main Course
1 goose
4 slices stale bread
1/2 pound fat salt pork
4 tablespoons fat
1 onion
1 egg
2 cups mashed potato
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sage
GOOSE is by tradition a New Year's bird but many people like it for Christmas dinner. If a young goose is not available, steam the bird for 1 to 2 hours or until tender before roasting.
For stuffing put through food chopper enough salt pork to make 1/4 cup, then chop the onion. Cut the bread in very thin strips lengthwise and crosswise, making crumbs, add to potato, add the salt pork and onion, then add fat melted, egg slightly beaten, salt and sage. Mix thoroughly, stuff the goose, skewer it and tie.
Put the bird on a rack in a dripping pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover breast with remaining pork cut in thin slices, put in hot oven, 450 degrees F., and bake 2 hours, basting every 15 minutes with fat in pan or with 1 cup orange juice. Remove pork last half hour of cooking and serve goose on platter removing string and skewers.
Garnish with watercress and bright red cranberries on silver skewers or toothpicks. Serve apple sauce as an accompaniment.
Christmas Fruit Cake
3/4 cup citron
1 pound raisins
1/4 tablespoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon clove
1/2 cup candied cherries
1/2 cup shortening
1/3 cup grape juice
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup almonds
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup fruit jelly
1/4 tablespoon allspice
1 teaspoon melted chocolate
1/4 tablespoon cinnamon
2 egg whites
1 cup flour
CUT raisins in pieces with scissors dipped frequently in hot water. Cut citron in thin slices and then in narrow strips. Reserve 4 cherries and cut the remainder in pieces, add to raisins and citron and soak overnight in grape juice. Blanch almonds, reserving 12, and cut or chop the remainder in pieces. Add with the spices to the orange juice and let stand overnight. Brown the flour in a slow oven so that the cake may be dark in color. Sift before using. Work the shortening until creamy, add sugar gradually, then add egg yolks and beat until light. Add jelly, melted chocolate and egg whites beaten stiff. Add fruit, nuts and spices, mix well, then add the flour and mix thoroughly. Turn into bread pan lined with paper and oiled. Garnish top with reserved cherries and almonds. Bake in a slow oven, 250 degrees F., for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Remove from oven, let stand a few minutes, then remove to cake cooler, let stand until cool and store in a covered tin box until time for serving. This makes a three-pound loaf.
It may be frosted with confectioner's frosting or royal frosting made of frozen egg white and confectioner's sugar.
Christmas Tree Salad
PARE large pointed pears and shape to resemble Christmas trees; then insert a skewer from top to bottom and cut across in the thinnest possible slices. Place on beds of shredded lettuce, remove skewer and cover pears with stiff mayonnaise dressing colored green. Decorate with strips of blanched almonds for candles and bits of bright colored candied fruit for Christmas tree decorations. At the foot of the Christmas tree place tiny "packages" of cream cheese decorated with a paint brush which has been dipped in food colors.
Frozen Christmas Tree Dessert
ICE CREAM may be purchased from a caterer in Christmas tree shapes, or you may serve vanilla ice cream with a cone-shaped server, cover with grapefruit mint sauce and sprinkle with the tiniest candies that you can purchase. If surrounded with green spun sugar and topped with a star cut fiom the yellow rind of orange or grapefruit, it will look as well as it tastes.
Grapefruit Mint Sauce
DRAIN liquid from 1 can grapefruit into saucepan, add 2 cups sugar, green food color to make a brilliant green and 1/2 cup chopped mint leaves. Simmer to minutes and add grapefruit pulp. If it is thinner than you like it, boil the sirup a few moments.
If you have no fresh mint leaves flavor the sauce to taste with a few drops oil of spearmint.
Steamed Christmas Pudding
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon soda
1 cup flour
1 cup raw potato
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup raw carrot
1 cup currants
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup seeded raisins
SIFT together into mixing bowl sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Using the fine knife put through food chopper enough potato and carrot to make I cup of each. Add to dry ingredients with the fruit and mix thoroughly. Turn into greased molds or half-pound baking powder boxes and steam 2 hours. Serve with hard sauce with fruit.
Hard Sauce with Fruit
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons chopped nut meats
1 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons cream
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
4 dates
WORK the butter until creamy, add sugar gradually and when thoroughly blended add cream, drop by drop. Add nut meats, dates stoned and cut in pieces and flavoring and mix thoroughly.
Candy Candleholders
Cook 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons water until sirup begins to discolor. Dip one side of a tiny candy ring in sirup and lay in the center of a peppermint. Fasten another ring on top, then dip one edge of a third ring in sirup and stand upright on the peppermint like the handle of a candlestick.
Place a tiny candle in each candleholder and light them just before the guests come to the table.
Source: Woman's Home Companion - December 1930
FOOD RESOURCES
Christmas Cakes Dec.1919
5 Christmas Cake Recipes and 4 Christmas Cookie Recipes.
Christmas Dinners Dec.1919
4 Christmas Dinner Recipes including main courses and desserts.
Food Shortage by 1960 Predicted ~1925
A prediction that food shortages would cause war and famine by 1960.
Creole Cookery of Old New Orleans ~1923
Old style Creole cooking the way it used to be done. Includes recipes from 1923.
Food Storage Room ~1923
A 1920's style room for storing food without using electrical power.
Food Preservation Methods ~1923
Typical Food Preservation and Storage Techniques from 1923.