Grandma's Shrimp Salad...kinda'

My Grandma Brown made the best shrimp salad.  My aunts make it now and their's is just as good.  Last week I made some shrimp salad in the tradition of Grandma Brown and my brother said it was the best shrimp salad he had ever eaten, and I liked it too.  So I thought I'd write it down for the next time that I want to do it.  This isn't a tested recipe so I'm sorry I don't have exact measurements on everything.  Grandma made it with tiny pasta shells rather than elbow macaroni.  I like the elbow macaroni because it is shaped like shrimp.  Use whatever you have.  I'm sure Grandma never used greek yogurt but everything else is pretty close to the way she made it (I think).  I think that what made my brother say it was the best was the amount of salt I put in but it could be the combination of yogurt and homemade salad dressing that I used.

I had some frozen shrimp in the freezer but they were large so I just cut them up into pieces about the size of a pea.  I think grandma used tiny canned shrimp.  I think it is best with some kind of fresh or frozen shrimp rather than canned.

I hate Miracle Whip, I'm a mayonnaise girl all the way, but this salad really screams for Miracle Whip! Because I don't buy Miracle Whip (or mayonnaise for that matter) I made my own "salad dressing" the same way I make mayonnaise, only I added about 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar for the acid and about 1-2 tablespoons of sugar, a pinch of salt, and 1 teaspoon of dry mustard to 1 egg and 1 cup oil.  Check out how I do it  here.  If you don't want to make your own use good ol' Miracle Whip, no problem.

This is a great salad for those summer pot lucks. Just check with me if you are going to bring it to a pot luck I'm at.


Grandma B's Shrimp Salad

About 1 lb elbow macaroni (tiny pasta shells)
1 stalk of celery, chopped
about 5 green onions, chopped
about 5-6 chopped hard boiled eggs
Shrimp (about the size of the pasta)
1 cup Miracle Whip
about 3/4 cup greek yogurt
salt to taste

Cook the elbow macaroni in well salted water.  Drain, and run cold water over the pasta to stop the cooking and cool the pasta.  Drain the pasta well.  Taste the pasta for saltiness, add salt to taste.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix.

Thai Green Papaya Salad

I love this salad and it is so unexpected. I mean, who would think that you would make salad out of GREEN papaya, and then you put mint, basil and cilantro together, but that is typical of Thai food. I love ripe papaya made as a smoothie but GREEN papaya???  Yes, it works!

I have made the dressing with just garlic, fish sauce, lime juice and sweet chili sauce (egg roll sauce) in fact that is the easiest way for me to make it.  I wouldn't suggest using dried herb, I just don't think it would work.

The dish is made from unripe Southeast Asian papayas, which have firm, almost white flesh and white seeds.  I find them in an Asian market that I frequent.  I have also made this with Mexican papayas (in Mexico...I planned ahead and took some fish sauce and sweet chili sauce in my luggage) and I don’t mind if they have a little color to the flesh, however this dish is best with papaya that is very unripe.  I use a mandolin instead of a shredder because I like long, skinny, square pieces of papaya in this salad.  You may want to ask your grocer for unripened  fruit as they may not display them.  Just ask for the greenest papaya that they have.  He'll probably think you are strange but what do you have to loose?

One more thing...Fish Sauce!  Fish sauce is one of those mystery ingredients that you can't believe makes food taste so good.  It's like anchovies in Caesar Salad.  They carry fish sauce in my local market (Harmon's) along with all of the other ingredients as well.  I was shopping for fish sauce one day at the Asian market and the young proprietor of the Asian market suggested that I tried using fish sauce in dishes that aren't Asian yet need some saltiness.  I'm sure it would work I just haven't found the right thing to try it out with.

Green Papaya Salad with Shrimp

¼             pound   small shrimp (about 9), shelled

For dressing

1                           large garlic clove, forced through a garlic press

3             Tbsp      fresh lime juice

1 ½         Tbsp      Asian fish sauce (preferably nuoc mam)

1             Tbsp      sugar

1                          small thin fresh red or green Asian chili (1 to 2 inches long) or serrano chili, or to taste, seeded and chopped fine (wear rubber gloves)

I usually make the dressing by mixing fresh lime juice, fish sauce and sweet chili sauce.

For salad

3/4         lb            green papaya, peeled, seeded, and coarsely shredded  (about 3 cups)

1                              carrot, shredded fine

1/3         cup         Fresh Thai basil leaves, washed well and spun dry (regular fresh basil will work)

1/3         cup         fresh cilantro leaves, washed well and spun dry

1/3         cup         fresh mint leaves, washed well and spun dry

2            Tbsp       roasted peanuts, crushed

In a small saucepan of boiling salted water cook shrimp 45 seconds to 1 minute, or until cooked through. In a colander drain shrimp and rinse under cold water to stop cooking. Halve shrimp horizontally and devein.

Make dressing:

In a large bowl whisk together dressing ingredients until sugar is dissolved.

Add shrimp, papaya, carrot, and herbs to dressing, tossing well.  Salad may be made 2 hours ahead and chilled, covered.  Bring salad to room temperature before serving.

Serve salad sprinkled with peanuts.

Serves 4.

The Corn Parties are over!

Last week I helped Bruce's parents with their corn parties. They had 7 parties in 6 days.  There were between 50 to 100 people at each of these parties.  On the menu was corn from the garden, of course, barbecue beef, pot luck salads and deserts.  Mark (Bruce's dad) also makes homemade root beer in the old fashioned way, the way his mother made it with yeast giving it carbonation.  It's always funny to see a bunch of Mormons drink the stuff for the first time because the yeast gives it a slight alcoholic taste, at least to a bunch of tea totalers. Former beer drinkers love the stuff because it has the bitterness that they remember from their days of drinking regular beer.  I've never drunk regular beer on a regular basis so I don't know for sure.  Each day the root beer tastes slightly different and I always try it out to see how it tastes that day.  I usually like it on the sweet side with a touch of bitterness.  Regardless, I find the process of making it fascinating.  I vow to get Mark to teach me how to make it SOON!  He's 82 years old.

Here's a picture I took of Mark last year out in the corn patch.  You can see the trash can in which he cooks the corn.  Cooking corn is the only thing that he uses the can for so don't worry.

Along with corn, anything else that may be ripe is presented at the table.  Tomatoes, peaches and raspberries were all on the table this year.  Some of the best tomatoes are small, orange, cherry tomatoes.

This year my contribution to the Corn Parties was "Cucumber Salad", sometimes I call it "Fresh Cucumber Pickles", New York Jews might call it "New Pickle", made with cucumbers from the garden.  I think my mother started making Cucumber Salad back in the late '70's.    The recipe is in a book published in 1977 by the Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith.   I used to watch Jeff Smith all the time on PBS and I think that I started my love of cooking by watching his shows.  Unfortunately, he was involved in a scandal that ended his television career.

Mom made this all the time and now I make it when the cucumbers are plentiful in the market or in the garden.  It is usually quite popular and very easy to make.  In the recipe book that it comes from there is a comment that it will become a family favorite and beside that comment at some point I wrote "You're right". I made this 6 times last week and started out with a 5 gallon bucket of cucumbers on Monday.  There was less than a quart of "pickles" left over Saturday night.

I like to eat these with sour cream or Greek yogurt but you probably won't miss either if you don't have them on hand.  Here is the recipe:

Cucumber Salad (From Israel)

Peel and thinly slice 4 cucumbers
Mix with 1 thinly sliced yellow onion (I cut them "pole to pole")
Bring to boil
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1    cup white vinegar (apple cider vinegar will do)
1/2 T.   dry dill
Pour over the cucumbers and onions and chill.  The hot vinegar cooks them slightly but they still are crisp.  They are best served the same day you make them but can be kept for several days in the fridge.

That's it!