Frog Eye Salad

Recently we invited to a family gathering where the hamburgers and hotdogs would be provided, and we were asked to bring a side dish.  This gave me the chance to make Frog Eye Salad, my wife received this recipe years ago from her aunt and it continues to be one of our favorite salads.  This recipe that makes a very large quantity of salad, and we only make it when there will be quite a few people present to consume it.  This salad is very easy to make, though it does require some preparation the day before it is to be served.

Frog Eye Salad Recipe:
   1 package Acini Di Pepe No 44 Pasta
   ½ teaspoon salt
   1 2/4 cup pineapple juice (drained from cans of pineapple)
   ¾ cup sugar
   3 tablespoons flour
   3 eggs
   2 cans chunk pineapple, 16 ounce (drained, save juice)
   1 can crushed pineapple, 16 ounces (drained, save juice)
   4 cans Mandarin oranges (drained, one can for garnish)
   1 cups small marshmallows
   1 cup coconut
   12 ounce Cool Whip

Directions:

1. Cook entire box of Pasta per directions on package with the ½ teaspoon of salt in a 3-quart pan.  Rinse cooked pasta in cold water and cool.
2. In a medium saucepan, mix the 1 ¾ cups of pineapple juice, ¾ cup of sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, and 3 eggs.  Cook on medium heat stirring constantly until thick (approximately two minutes after it starts to boil).
3. Mix the sauce with the pasta and refrigerate overnight.
4. Mix remaining ingredients and mix with the pasta, garish the top with the remaining mandarin orange slices.

Because we were traveling to Seattle for the function, I decided to start the salad the night before we left home; I cooked the pasta with the salted water in a large stockpot.  Once the pasta was completely cooked, I drained the pasta and placed it in a large ceramic bowl in the refrigerator to cool.

While the pasta cooled, I drained the cans of pineapple and mixed the ingredients for the pineapple sauce in a medium saucepan.  I placed the saucepan on the range on medium heat and started stirring.  It took about ten minutes to bring the mixture to a boil.

I noticed that some of the egg whites where starting to cook together, but I just stirred a little more to break up the clumps.

I used a large mixing bowl and stirred the warm pineapple sauce into the cool pasta then I returned the pasta to the ceramic bowl and returned the pasta to the refrigerator for the night.

The next day we drove to Seattle where we spent the night.  In the morning, I mixed the remaining ingredients into the pasta.  The container of Cool Whip was only available in 20 and 10-ounce sizes, so I purchased a 20-ounce container and only used part of the contents.  The cans of pineapple were also larger than specified in the recipe, but I went ahead and used the entire cans of pineapple in the recipe
.

We divided the salad into two bowls and garnished the top of each bowl of salad with the fourth can of mandarin oranges.  I neglected to take a photo of the finished salad, so you will have to use your imagination.  We divided the salad because in the past, when we serve one large bowl, sometimes only a small amount of the salad gets eaten (people think it is cottage cheese), so we decided to put out one bowl and if was eaten, we would put out the second bowl.  As it turns out, there were only enough people at the event to eat the one bowl, so we ate the remainder with our family the next day.

If you need a salad to serve a large number of guests, Frog Eye Salad and a great salad to make.  However, you might want to set out a small card with the ingredients, so people know exactly what they are eating.  We will continue to make the salad, and over time, we may put out less and less so that there is more for us to eat after the party!

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Traveling – Hellerup, Denmark

In 1996 while we were on our nine-week grand tour of Europe, we made a side trip from Copenhagen to the town of Skovshoved Denmark to look up where some of our family ancestors originated.  We had to train to the town of Hellerup and then we walked to Skovshoved and back.

Before we returned to Copenhagen, we decided to have some lunch in Hellerup, and we saw a small café with outdoor seating with quite a few people eating there, so we decided to eat at that establishment.  We were seating at some nice seats on the terrace and then we had to have the waiter interpret the menu for us as it was all in Danish.

We skipped on the herring dishes; I chose smoked salmon with eggs, my wife a chicken salad and our son a hamburger.  When the food arrived, we were all very surprised.  The chicken salad was very small but fine to eat.  The hamburger was dark red inside, so we asked to have it cooked a little longer, but when it came back, the meat was still red inside.  We found out later, that in some places in Denmark, they add saltpeter to the meat so it will stay red.  No wonder they have a declining birthrate.

Having lived in the Northwest for all my life, and our family used to salmon fish it seems like every weekend, I have eaten my share of smoked salmon.  It is usually a thick fillet of meat that has been soaked in brine and then smoked for six to eight hours over a smoky fire.

My dish was smoked salmon with some scrambled eggs on top.  I asked the waiter why the salmon was raw, and I was told that it was cold smoked – that’s the way they smoke it.  Oh!  At least the hot eggs had cooked a portion of the salmon under were they sat, so some of the salmon had the texture that I expected.  I have eaten sushi before (I usually use it as bait to catch other fish) and I went ahead and ate the entire meal.  It wasn’t bad, but the uncooked texture of the salmon was a little unnerving.

I’m sure that the waiter was thought that we were silly Americans, and he could be correct.  There are a wide range of ways to prepare the same food depending on the country and region of the world, none of the ways are right or wrong, it's just what you're used to.  We look back on the experience and have a good laugh; it didn’t kill us and gives us a great story.  The picture pretty much tells it all.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell