No picnic is complete without a bowl of jello

After 50 years of living in America, I am finally an American: Today I made (and ate) a jello salad with carrots in it. It was the Saturday of a holiday weekend, and someone suggested that we do jello salad as the recipe this week. I had to test and adapt the recipe before I could put it on the page, so....  

Apparently, salads that have carrot and pineapple suspended in them are as American as, I don’t know, Crisco pie crusts and Chevy trucks and are an important addition to picnic table meals across the nation.

So, here’s the health angle: Traditional jello salads are made with Jell-O brand products, which have sugar and chemicals and preservatives in them. If for some reason you are a modern healthy person but still want to put a jello salad on the table, then you’ll want to use Knox Gelatine mixed with fruit juice as the base.

Let me emphasize that this is not a dessert. It’s a side dish. This was explained to me by the grandmother of our lovely and talented Lakeville Journal intern, Gwen Craig. Gwen swore to me that her grandmother is an expert at jello salads, that these salads always have carrot in them and that they are in fact delicious.

“Everyone likes them,” Doris Grauel said, when I called her at her home in Monroe last week. “I always have to double the recipe.”

The recipe that Grauel uses is from the Betty Crocker cookbook and uses Jell-O brand gelatin. I adapted it,  using the instructions on the Knox Gelatine package. The concept here is that Knox is a completely chemical- and sugar-free product. There’s only one ingredient listed on the box: gelatin.

Carrot and pineapple salad

Two 1-ounce packets of unflavored Knox Gelatine;  1/2 cup cold orange juice;  1 1/2 cups orange juice heated to boiling;   1/4 teaspoon salt;   1/4 cup finely grated carrot;   1/4 cup pineapple chopped into small pieces

Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold juice in a large bowl and let it stand for one minute. Add the hot juice and salt and stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved (it seems like the gelatin dissolves immediately, but the Knox package recommends stirring for a full five minutes; bring a book or your iPod if you get bored easily). Refrigerate for 30 to 45 minutes, until the gelatin is thick but not set.

Stir in the carrot and pineapple (sometimes fresh pineapple can keep the gelatin from setting; I didn’t have that problem but if you want to be ultra-safe, use canned pineapple).

At this point, you can spoon the whole thing into a decorative mold (if you’re keenly interested in how to do this, go online to www.jellomoldmistress.com, which is actually a great cooking website even if it is devoted exclusively to jello).

Keep it in the ’fridge for another two hours. Knox Gelatine gets very firm when set, so you can actually let it sit on a picnic table for a couple of hours and it won’t melt.

Panna cotta is an Italian version of jello — a sweet, creamy dessert gelatin. Basic panna cotta is flavored with vanilla, which makes it an excellent base for any kind of sliced fruit combinations; such as mango and pineapple, or mixed berries to offset the creamy custard.

Panna cotta

Adapted from “The All New Good Housekeeping Cookbook”

Makes eight servings

1 envelope unflavored gelatin;   1 cup milk;   1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract;  1 3/4 cups heavy cream;   1/4 cup sugar; 1 cinnamon stick

Evenly sprinkle the gelatin over the milk and let it stand for two minutes.

In a deep saucepan, combine the cream, sugar, cinnamon stick; heat to boiling over high heat, stirring occasionally.

Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Stir in the milk and gelatin. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the gelatin has completely dissolved, 2 to 3 minutes.

Discard the cinnamon stick and stir in the vanilla extract.

Pour the cream mixture into a medium bowl set in a large bowl of ice water. With a rubber spatula, stir the mixture until it just begins to set, 10 to 12 minutes.

Pour into eight 4-ounce ramekins. Cover and refrigerate them until they are well chilled and set, four hours or overnight.

To unmold the panna cotta, run the tip of a knife around the edges. Tap the side of each ramekin sharply to break the seal. Invert onto individual serving plates and serve with fresh fruit and a sprig of mint.