Jellied chicken salad garnished with tomato and cucumber

Jellied Chicken Salad

A creamy chicken salad, perfect for the Summertime Christmas table. Originally published in the Australian Women’s Weekly, December 2nd, 1953

Ingredients

570 ml or 2 1/4 US cups of chicken or vegetable stock (not 2 1/2 US cups as I say in the video!)

8 teaspoons or 2 Australian tablespoons of gelatine

1/2 cup grated carrot

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 chopped gherkin (or other sweet pickle)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 1/2 cups of diced, cooked chicken. I diced some chicken breast and cooked it very quickly in a frying pan/skillet

Salad vegetables and lettuce leaves for garnish

Method

Take 3/4 of a cup of the stock and put the gelatine in it to soak

Put the rest of the stock in a saucepan and heat gently.

Add the gelatine mixture and stir until completely dissolved.

Let it cool, put it in a bowl and refrigerate until it has partially set, about the consistency of thick cream.

Mix the carrot, celery, gherkin, chicken and mayonnaise.

Mix the chicken mixture and gelatine together

Rinse the mould with water and while still wet, pour the chicken mixture in.

Refridgerate until set.

When set, put some lettuce leaves artfully over the top of the mould and turn out into a plate.

Garnish with your choice of salad vegetables.

Sugar Syrup

A quick sugar syrup used to sweeten cold drinks or replace agave syrup. Different concentrations of sugar and water can be used for all sorts of recipes, some of which I’ve described below.

Ingredients

3 cups of liquid and one cup of sugar. Use this as a cake glaze. You can use fruit juice to replace some of the water. Leave your cake in the tin after cooking, poke some holes in the top and pour the glaze over. Leave to cool before removing the cake.

2 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar for sweetening cold drinks. No more sugar crystals in the bottom of your glass!

1 cup of water to 1 cup of sugar. This is used as the basis for cold fruit drinks and cocktails. You can also use it as the first concentration of syrup to make candied fruits.

Method

Heat the sugar and water in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved.

Let it cool and store in the fridge.