I want to be honest with you right at the start. These are not the tearoom's recipes. Mrs. Phillips took those with her when she
retired in 1979, and she was not a woman you asked twice. These are my recipes, worked out at my own stove over twenty years of trying
to make things taste the way they tasted on the fourth floor at a quarter past twelve on a Saturday. Some of them I'm proud of. The
chicken salad is very close. The hot fudge, I'd put up against anybody's.
If you ate in the tearoom and you think I've got something wrong, please write and tell me. Several ladies already have, and two of
them were right.
Chicken Salad
The tearoom served it in a lettuce cup with a cheese straw, a slice of aspic and a spiced peach half. Serves 6.
4 cups cooked chicken, white and dark both, cut in small even pieces (not shredded, not chopped fine)
1 cup celery, diced very small
3/4 cup mayonnaise, more or less
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons of the chicken broth, cooled
1 tablespoon sweet pickle juice
1/2 teaspoon salt and a good pinch of white pepper
1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped (optional, but I always do)
Poach the chicken gently in salted water with an onion, a carrot and a rib of celery until just done, and let it cool in the broth. That
is half the secret: chicken that's boiled hard is tough and dry, and no amount of mayonnaise will save it. Cut it into pieces about the
size of the end of your little finger. Stir together the mayonnaise, lemon juice, broth, pickle juice, salt and pepper, and fold it into
the chicken and celery with a rubber spatula until everything is just coated. Cover and chill at least three hours, so it can settle into
itself. Fold in the pecans right before you serve it, so they stay crisp.
The broth and the pickle juice are my guesses at what Mrs. Phillips did. I'm fairly sure about the broth. The pickle juice I'll stand by
whether she did it or not.
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Cheese Straws
Every plate got one. Makes about 6 dozen.
1/2 pound extra-sharp cheddar, grated fine, at room temperature
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, depending on your nerve
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat the butter and cheese together until they're smooth and well blended; this takes a few minutes and you
must not skimp. Mix the flour, salt and cayenne and work them into the cheese mixture until you have a stiff dough. Pack it into a cookie
press fitted with the star plate and press out long ribbons onto ungreased baking sheets, then cut them into 3-inch lengths with a knife.
Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until they're just barely golden at the edges. Don't let them brown, or they'll taste scorched. Cool on the pans.
They keep a week in a tin, if you hide the tin.
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Tomato Aspic
Young people make faces at aspic. Young people never ate in the tearoom. Serves 8.
4 cups tomato juice, divided
a few celery leaves, a thick slice of onion, 1 bay leaf, 4 peppercorns
1 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
a few drops of hot pepper sauce
Put 3 1/2 cups of the tomato juice in a saucepan with the celery leaves, onion, bay leaf, peppercorns, sugar and salt, and simmer it gently
for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, sprinkle the gelatin over the remaining 1/2 cup of cold juice in a bowl and let it soften. Strain the hot juice
over the softened gelatin and stir until it's completely dissolved. Add the lemon juice, Worcestershire and hot sauce, and taste it; it
should be bright and a little sharp. Pour it into a lightly oiled ring mold or eight little molds and chill until firm, at least five hours
or overnight.
To unmold, dip the mold in warm water for just a few seconds and turn it out onto lettuce. The tearoom put a little dab of mayonnaise on
top. So do I.
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Chess Pie
Plain, sweet and Southern. One 9-inch pie.
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted and cooled a little
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
a pinch of salt
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Stir the melted butter and sugar together, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the cornmeal,
vinegar, milk, vanilla and salt until smooth. Pour it into the pie shell and bake 45 to 50 minutes, until the top is golden brown and
the middle only jiggles a little when you shake the pan. It will set the rest of the way as it cools. Let it cool completely before you
cut it, which is the hardest part of the recipe.
Everybody has a story about how chess pie got its name. The one I heard most at the store was about a cook who, asked what kind of pie
she was baking, said it wasn't any kind, it was just pie. I don't know if it's true. I don't care. It's the best pie there is.
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Hot Fudge Sauce
For the sundae in the silver dish. Makes about 3 cups.
4 squares (4 ounces) unsweetened chocolate
4 tablespoons butter
2 cups sugar
a pinch of salt
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Melt the chocolate and butter together in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Stir in the sugar a little at a time, with the
salt; it will get thick and grainy and look like a mistake, and it isn't. Now add the evaporated milk slowly, stirring all the while, and keep
cooking and stirring over the hot water until the sugar has completely dissolved and the sauce is smooth, glossy and thick, about 15 minutes.
Take it off the heat and stir in the vanilla.
Serve it hot over vanilla ice cream, with whipped cream and one cherry, in the best dish you own. It keeps in a jar in the refrigerator for
two weeks, and you can warm it back up the same way, over hot water. On the fourth floor it came to the table in a little pitcher on the side,
so you could pour it yourself, and that is the only proper way.
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Last updated September 7, 1999
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