Book - "Dinner in the Diner"

[NKP guy]

                                                              B&O Corn Bread Pie

"B&O passengers have been known to continue past their stations in order to have a second helping of this corn creation.  It takes a little making, but it's worth it.

1 lb. ground beef                           3/4 teaspoon pepper

1 large onion, chopped                   1 tablespoon chili powder

1 can tomato soup                         1/2 cup green peppers

2 cups water                                  1 cup whole kernel corn  (drained)

1 teaspoon salt

Brown the beef and onion in a skillet.  Add the soup, water, seasonings, corn, and green pepper.  Mix well and allow to simmer for 15 minutes.  Then fill a greased pie dish or casserole 3/4 full, leaving room for the corn bread topping.  To make the corn bread top, sift together the following:

3/4 cup cornmeal                           1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar                         1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon flour

 

After they are sifted together, add one beaten egg and 1/2 cup milk.  Stir lightly and fold in 1 tablespoon of melted fat.  Cover the meat mixture with this topping and bake in a medium oven at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes.  Don't be surprised when the topping disappears into the meat mixture.  It will rise during the baking and form a good layer of corn bread.  Don't be surprised when the whole dish disappears after you put it on the table, because it has been one of the most popular items--with both men and women--served on the Baltimore and Ohio."

from Dinner in the Diner: Great Railroad Recipes of All Time by Will C. Hollister, 1965

 

Corn Bread pie sounds delicious, but not nearly as good to me as the NYC's Lobster a la Newburg.

Bon appetit! 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Note that the following additional ingredients are 'buried' in the text of the 2nd paragraph, and are not listed in either of the tabulations:

1 beaten egg 

1/2 cup milk 

1 tablespoon of melted fat

I noticed that omission yesterday, when I was reviewing it before trying to persuade my wife to make it (or let me try).  If I'm successful in either attempt, I'll let you know what we think.

- Paul North.  

[sandiego]

Thank you to both NKP Guy and Paul North for the B&O recipe; and yes, it would be easy to miss those extra ingredients buried in the text.

We are getting a bit low on corn meal so I have to wait until supplies are replenished later this week to try the recipe. Sounds good and I am eager to try it!

Kurt Hayek

[CShaveRR]

We tried the cornbread pie recipe yesterday, with mixed results.  First of all, I should mention that in the interest of authenticity, most of the ingreadients were brough home by train (it is easier to reach the store in Elmhurst without using the car, so that's how I did it).

The "filling" was a lot wetter than I expected, so it was almost like soup.  If that's supposed to be a pie filling, I would have expected it to be stiffer.  

The cornmeal was fresh, and mixed up very well.  Perhaps fresh baking powder would have made it fluffier and more absorbent.

The entire concoction was very tasty.  To suit our own tastes, we cut back on the chili powder by about 50 percent.  

In a semi-related development, I located my copy of the book this morning!

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

My wife sees no problems with that recipe, and is intending to make it for a casual lunch with some long-time friends when they come over in the next week or two.

Thanks, Carl for that report on your experience.

- Paul North.

[MP173]

Thanks for posting the corn bread pie recipe.  I misplaced my book (how in the world did that happen?).

The mixture was a little "soupy" and I countered that by bumping the baking time by about 10 minutes (to about 30 minutes).  Also, I used a 10 ounce can of tomato soup.

I topped it with a little dollip of sour cream and taco sauce...OUTSTANDING.  My son raved about it.

Any recommendations for this weekend?  I will try another recipe.

Ed

[MP173]

New York Central Individual Deep Dish Chicken Pie...p 88

6 pcs boneless chicken (white and dark)

3 whole carrots

4 Parisienne potatoes

3 button onions

Chicken should be boiled well done and cut in large chunks at least one inch square.  Saute lightly and season with above vegetables.  Do not brown.  Assemble with chicken in deep pie dish with plenty of "rich sauce".  Cover with flaky pie crust, cust crust large enough to fit completely over pie, allowing enough so the crushed may be pushed upward in the center.  Crimp the edges and glaze with egg white.

Flaky pie crust

2 level cups shortening

1 level teaspon salt

5 level cups flour

1 level teaspoon baking powder

Sift dry ingredients and rub shortening into flour but do not rub entirely smooth leaving some lumps the size of peas to make crust flaky.  Moisten with ice water.

 

OK>>>modifications made:

I used turkey breast (leftover from earlier meal this week) and used purchased pie dough (frozen).  I also added celery and diced mushrooms.  The "rich sauce" i used was turkey gravy.

Assembled it in a deep dish pie pan and baked at 350 for about 70 minutes.

Really a good hearty, warm, satisfying meal on a cold winter night.

Will definately do this again, probably next Thanksgiving Friday....but also when we have chicken left over.  

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

I wondered why I hadn't noticed that Corn Bread Pie recipe before.  One reason is that it's indexed under "Miscellaneous" back on page 143 of my copy (Fifth printing, July 1974).  

Our trial of that recipe is scheduled for a week from today.  Thanks to all for your observations, details, and suggestions, etc.   

Good photo of the far end half of a double-slip switch on the GN at St. Paul on pg. 144, too.

- Paul North.   

[MP173]

Paul:

It is worth the effort to make the corn bread pie.  Also the chicken pie.  These are pretty hearty meals.  Nothing lite in the book that I have found.

Ed

[Firelock76]

MP173

Kurt:

I cannot find the book right now....I will post as quickly as it is located.  

Hmm, it was in the kitchen Saturday.

Ed

 

Check the bathroom.  That's where all my best books seem to wind up.

[MP173]

Firelock:

My wife filed the book with the cookbooks.  Now why would she do that?

Anyway, the turkey pie was a huge hit.

Next up...Southern Pacific Hot Cakes (p 121)

It is a cold frosty morning in NW Indiana (-2) and hot cakes sounded like a good breakfast.  

1 c flour

1/2 cup milk

1 tbs sugar

1 tbs melted butter

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

pinch of salt.

Combine dry ingredients.  Beat egg with butter and milk and add to dry ingredients.  

Alterations:

I used 1/2 cup of milk and the batter was a bit too thick so I added a little more milk, found the buttermilk in the frig and added that to get to the consisency desired.  Then I added a handful of blueberries.

Yes, pancakes are easily made...but these really hit the spot.

The thought that these were served on a diner was a added bonus.

ed

[MP173]

I have not been happy with my biscuits of late.  For the longest time I used Bisquick mix (which was developed by a railroad dining car cook BTW) and those were ok.  Then I used an Alton Brown 5 star recipe which were not as good as Bisquick.

So tonight when the dinner screamed "BISCUITS" (baked cube steak/gravy, mashed potatoes, and garden frozen green beans), I turned to the Illinois Central for their "Tea Biscuits".  I will provide the original recipe which I cut down from 3.5 c flour to 2 cups (a factor of .57 which was used for everything except the egg).

3.5 c flour

3.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

.75 c shortening

1 whole egg

1.5 c milk (I used Buttermilk).

Sift flour, baking powder and salt well, adding shortening and mix until flour crumbles, then add egg and milk.  Stir well.  Turnout on lightly floured board and roll dough to .75" thickness.  Cut with a biscuit cutter, place in greased pan, brush lightly with egg wash.  Bake for appx 15 minutes.  This recipe makes 24 biscuits.

I used a baking stone instead of greased pan and the biscuits baked appx 20 minutes at 350 then pushed to 425 for 3 minutes. 

These were the flakiest biscuits I have made.  With butter and honey these biscuits complimented the meal quite nicely.  

This recipe will be my "go-to" for biscuits from now on.

Ed

[Deggesty]

Ed, you brushed the water that you used to wash the egg on the biscuits?

I use Bisquick for my biscuits; I have not yet ventured to make them from scratch. I do prefer to make pancakes from scratch, though.

[MP173]

Brushed the biscuits with egg whites.  I didnt separate the white from the yoke instead used a commercial "egg white" product.  Works just as well and eliminates the step of separation.

Give this recipe a try.  The biscuits were really good.  The hot cakes this morning were very tasty and my son has called for them tomorrow also.  However, with leftover biscuits, a breakfast sandwitch could be in order.

I really am enjoying this cookbook.

Ed

[LehighVic]

Oh man, are you in for a(some) treat(s). Classic Trains featured an article "Last Call to Dinner" based on your new(old) book which is still available excerpted in the history section of this site. The recipes in the article are mouthwatering and suprixingly easy to make even for a 'boil water" chef like myself. The first one I tried was the Silver Dollar French Toast as served on the Missouri Pacific(?)Texas Eagle - outstanding! and it got rave reviews around my kitchen. Shoefly Pie from Pennsy's Broadway Limited is a favorite among ny "passengers." And there's a stuffed chicken breast treat as on the Chicago Northwesten that all around here like. I hope I'm getting the names and roads correct, but I don't have my loose-leaf 'cookbook' handy to double-check. Do try the recipes; they're fun and you won't be disappointed.

LehighVic

Romeo, MI

 

[choo-choo-wayne]

[quote user="MP173"]

The wife and I were out enjoying the February thaw today and went into an used bookstore in Chesterton, In which had a fairly large number of railroad books.

I picked up "Dinner in the Diner - Great Railroad Recipes of all Time" by Will C. Hollister.  The book was written in 1960 (if my Roman Numeral translation is correct) and is a combination railfan/cookbook.  There are 19 chapters, each covering a railroad (along with a map and several photos of passenger trains or interiors of dining cars).  Each chapter will have several recipes from the diner, for a total of perhaps 200 recipes.

I enjoy cooking and plan on using the recipes.  The first planned meal will be "Corn Bread Pie" from Baltimore and Ohio, which is essentially cornbread with cooked ground beef, onions, pepper, etc.  which is a variation of what I call "taco cornbread".

Anyone else seen this fine book?  Cost was $10.

Ed

 Had a copy for years.  Try the IC clam chowder--it's always a hit at our house!

[TEB-2]

 

In “Dining By Rail,” James D. Porterfield accurately points out that some recipes in the Hollister book are “clearly in need of portion reduction” (p. 367).  Indeed!  Making the Chesapeake and Ohio ‘Dressings and Sauces,’ for instance, at full strength will give you an awful lot of dressings and sauces!

 

Years back, I concocted a route through the Hollister collection and have been working (cooking?) at it off and on ever since, and plan to continue to do so.  I enjoy laying out the finished product, inserting a piece or two of my railroadiana and/or a family artifact into the scene, and then snapping a picture.   The pics are making their way into a power point file to which I add comments mostly on the artifacts, but also on the dining aspect – just short snippets and stories for the next generation.  Here’s an early, basic attempt.  The coffee cup ‘B’, of course, is not for Baltimore and Ohio, but for the family name – Brumbach.  Grandpa Brumbach purchased the set.  He worked for the Reading from, 1910 to 1940.  Coffee just tastes so much better when using his cups.

 

 

 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

OK, my wife made the B&O's Corn Bread Pie for our guests today - with some modifications - and everyone liked it.  Here's what we changed, based on the comments above:

• Only 1 cup of water, to address the "soupy" comments.  It still had a lot of liquid, so we think we got that right.
• Soup was 1 ea. 10 oz. can of Campbell's standard Condensed (thick) Tomato Soup.  No extra water was added to or for it (which would be if it was being used to make regular soup instead), other than the 1 cup as above.  (I'm also wondering if back in the day, the soup was condensed like this or not - maybe more like some upscale soups today which say "DO NOT ADD WATER" ?).
• She cut back a little bit on the salt, pepper, and chili powder.  I don't know how much of the 1st two, but the chili powder was supposed to be 1 tablespoon (= 3 teaspoons).  We started with 1/2 tablespoon, then tasted it and raised it to 2 teaspoons (= 2/3 tablespoon).  
• Also added a few diced tomatoes (from a can).
• For the 1 tablespoon of melted fat, she used canola oil.
• For the 1/2 cup of milk, she used 1%-fat milk.   
• Used 2 teaspoons of baking powder, instead of the 1-1/2 per the recipe.  
• We used a 12" square casserole dish - she was afraid the mixture would spill over the sides of her pie dish (fairly shallow). 
• Greased it with a vegetable spray. 
• We also had sour cream to spread on top - everyone liked that.
• She also had some fresh chopped cilantro - she liked it, I didn't notice it on my 2nd helping . . .

It was pretty good.  She said it was like an early version  of a Southwestern or Mexican dish.  The cornbread didn't quite cover the filling; next time she'd double the quantity of the cornbread for the same amount of filling.  Also, use 3 teaspoons of baking powder instead of the 1-1/2 specified.  She also commented that the texture and amount of the cornbread portion could vary quite a bit, based on the type of cornmeal used - fine or medium coarse ground, which I think ours was (from the "Bob's Red Mill" brand).  She's considering using tomato paste instead of the tomato soup - might do that next time, too.

There will definitely be a next time !

- Paul North.    

[MP173]

Paul:

Sounds like you had a great meal.  I really enjoyed it, as did my son.  

We will definately have it again too.

 

Ed

[CShaveRR]

We've made it three times now.  I mentioned the first one; it was a little soupy, but when we reheated it this wasn't as noticeable.

The second time we made it as a dish to take to some church members whose high-school-age girl was seriously injured in a skiing accident (she's now back to school part-time, thankfully!).  We haven't heard how they liked it yet, but I know that when we baked it it looked a lot better than the first time.

The third time was for us.  We used yet a different dish to bake it in, and this time the cornmeal rose to cover the entire top.

Our modifications:  not less water (though we might still try that), just a longer baking time (our oven is a little wonky); frozen whole-kernel corn instead of a can of corn (all it needs:  more water!). and cut back on the chili powder to one third of what the recipe called for (I could probably tolerate a little more).  This recipe serves six; there are two of us, so we made it last three meals, and were satisfied each time.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Thanks for the additional comments and insights. 

In the dish we made today, the cornbread might not have been enough to completely cover the top simply because the square shape has more surface area than the round shape of a pie dish.

What kind of cornmeal did each of you use ?  We used Bob's Red Mill Organic Medium Grind Cornmeal- readily available at one of our local grocery stores:

 http://www.bobsredmill.com/organic-medium-grind-cornmeal.html?&cat=5  

- Paul North.

 

[CShaveRR]

Aunt Jemima Yellow.  Very satisfactory--Pat also made some muffins out of it, and we have plenty more.

We could have used white, but I thought yellow would be more recognizable.

[Ted Meberg]

MP173

The wife and I were out enjoying the February thaw today and went into an used bookstore in Chesterton, In which had a fairly large number of railroad books.

I picked up "Dinner in the Diner - Great Railroad Recipes of all Time" by Will C. Hollister.  The book was written in 1960 (if my Roman Numeral translation is correct) and is a combination railfan/cookbook.  There are 19 chapters, each covering a railroad (along with a map and several photos of passenger trains or interiors of dining cars).  Each chapter will have several recipes from the diner, for a total of perhaps 200 recipes.

I enjoy cooking and plan on using the recipes.  The first planned meal will be "Corn Bread Pie" from Baltimore and Ohio, which is essentially cornbread with cooked ground beef, onions, pepper, etc.  which is a variation of what I call "taco cornbread".

Anyone else seen this fine book?  Cost was $10.

Ed

I also own that book. An even better book (along the same lines)...no pun intended, is, "Dining by Rail" by James Porterfield, copyright 1993. You can check it out on Amazon.