From Margaret’s Mom, Esther Schulte. She always made this for the holidays.
I recently ran across a Gene Hovis version of this where you put it in muffin tins or custard cups, and after it had partially set, you could sneak a little cube of cream cheese into the middle as a surprise. I gotta try that!
2 envelopes plain gelatin
3 T lemon juice
1 t grated onion
3 T pimiento
2 T chopped sweet pickle
1 1/2 C water
1 T vinegar
2/3 C ripe olives
2/3 C mayo
3 T sugar
1 t salt
2 C cooked shrimp
3 T catsup
Soften gelatin in 1/2 c water, heat remaining water and dissolve gelatin into it. Blend in sugar, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, onion. Cool. Cut olives in pieces, reserving a few large wedges for bottom of mold. Arrange a few whole shrimp, olive wedges, and pimientoes in bottom of 8-inch ring mold. Cover with a few spoonfuls of gelatin mixture. Chill until set. Coarsely chop remaining shrimp. Cook remaining gelatin until slightly thickened. Blend may, catsup, shrimp, pickle, and remainder of olives and pimiento and spoon over clear layer. Chill until firm. Unmold and fill center with salad greens.
Serves 8-10.
(If Mom knew I’d deliberately left out the chopped celery, she’d be turning over in her grave! But I can’t stand the stuff, and I prefer to leave it out or substitute other weird but interesting crunchy things, like water chestnuts, jicama, raw chayote, kohlrabi, or daikon.)