As I am drawn to eponymous recipes, I next turned to “Mrs. Nixon’s Hot Chicken Salad” contributed by Thelma Lysne and included in the “Soups, Salads, & Vegetables” category. This was amazing—it had everything I really like. Gooey, cheesy, salty comfort food.
Hot Chicken Salad
In addition, it was straightforward: “Mix all of above together” is the first line of the instructions, which leads the reader to head back to the ingredient list. As I continued to read more closely, I realized that I needed to prepare two of these ingredients before adding them to the mixture—the cold chicken and the hard-boiled eggs—as well as to refrigerate the mixture overnight. So I planned ahead. I decided on the day to serve it and worked backward temporally to the day before. On the afternoon of that “day before,” I cooked the chicken on the stove top in a cast-iron pan; since Thelma doesn’t specify a type of chicken, I decided to use boneless breast tenders, which seared and cooked to 165 quickly.
At the same time, I used our cute little egg cooker to hard-boil the eggs and cooled them in an ice-water bath. Then I put both in the fridge until the evening.
After cutting up the cold chicken, I realized that I was one cup shy of the necessary four cups. Though disappointed, I decided to go light on the other ingredients, rather than wait to make this. There’s only so much of any one dish my family is going to eat, so it’s fine not to have copious amounts of leftovers. I added all of the other ingredients, but I had a couple questions as I worked, like whether the minced onion should have been dried minced onion, since the recipe calls for only one teaspoon. I wasn’t prepared for that, and so I minced my raw diced onion even smaller and called it good.
The recipe also specifies “2 chopped pimento,” and I had purchased pre-chopped pimento. In fact, it made me realize that I’m not even sure what a whole pimento looks like or what it actually is! Though I knew I’d take some time later to do some research (spoiler—it’s a pepper), that evening I decided to use two tablespoons of my chopped pimento, as it looked balanced with the other ingredients in the bowl.
I can see why it is called “hot chicken salad,” as it looks like a chicken salad you might eat on bread as a cold sandwich. And I imagine removing the cream of chicken soup would create a cold chicken salad.
It looked good—mixed in the bowl, in the casserole dish, and with its toppings: toasted almonds, grated cheese, and crushed potato chips.
I put the lid on it and put it in my garage fridge until the next evening.
Reflections
After my daughter and I returned from an afternoon at the fair, I pre-heated the oven and baked it for approximately 23 of the 20 to 25 minutes specified at 400 degrees.
It developed a beautiful brown crust and when dished onto plates, the cream of chicken soup and mayonnaise did what they were supposed to do—puff up to act as creamy binders for the other ingredients. The pimentos appeared present, but not overwhelmingly so, and so I thought I had gauged that measurement well, despite my failure to procure the right form of pimento at the grocery store. With the topping right-side-up, the presentation for the first scoop was beautiful, and the second sideways scoop allowed me to see how the mixture fared during baking.
As I wasn’t sure how to serve it, I decided to treat it as a casserole, with a green salad and bread on the side. It was delicious—each bite was warm and both gooey and crunchy because of the celery. I loved it (and ate it with salad for lunch for the next two days). My daughter said it was okay, but she’s not really a casserole person. Luke said it was good but thought it was too salty. I was surprised when he said that, given that I 1) knew the recipe had prescribed only one teaspoon of salt and one cup of cheese and 2) had not yet had a bite that seemed over-salted. So I tried a few bites of the pieces with the potato-chip topping and understood his point. That is undoubtedly the result of using kettle chips, rather than more traditional potato chips—it was too intense. Undeterred, I told him to scrape off some of the topping and drink more milk. I will make this again soon (but with different chips).
When I visited with Thelma earlier this summer, I asked who Mrs. Nixon was. I mean, I know who “Mrs. Nixon” was—Pat Nixon, of course (fun coincidence—Pat’s given name is Thelma Catherine but received her nickname from her father). But I wasn’t expecting a reference to the former First Lady. “Hot Chicken Salad” is attributed to Pat Nixon, and Thelma noted that she got this recipe from her sister Greta Knutson, thought it was very good, and served it at Birthday Club (I remember my maternal grandmother going to Birthday Club too).
I can’t find this exact recipe online in my research about Nixon’s relationship to this chicken dish, but I do find information about a similar casserole called “Nixon Chicken,” which John Tolley explains in an article on Tasting Table was “allegedly a favorite of the chief executive and his family and alternately gets credited to either his wife Pat or one of his daughters, Julie or Tricia” (https://www.tastingtable.com/1301795/difference-nixon-chicken-chicken-divan/). The recipes for this dish are very similar to Thelma’s recipe, but Nixon Chicken uses broccoli rather than celery, no pimento, and no potato chip topping. Since this is a casserole, it makes sense that I served Thelma’s “Hot Chicken Salad” as a casserole too; as far as I can tell, it’s only the word “salad,” that points to its location in the “Soups, Salads, & Vegetables” section of the cookbook. The eponymous name reminds everyone that this casserole is firmly a product of the 1970s.
Contributor: Thelma Lysne
Thelma (Grindberg) Lysne is a lifelong resident of Velva. Her maternal grandparents, Andrew and Bertha Loftesnes, homesteaded north of Velva, in Hendrickson township, near Simcoe and Verendrye, and her paternal grandparents, Karl and Grethe Grindberg came to North Dakota in 1883 from Trondheim, Norway; later Karl farmed and had a shoemaker shop in Simcoe. Thelma’s parents Conrad and Inez Grindberg owned and managed Velva Lumber from 1945 to 1969. Thelma had two siblings, Alan and Greta; in 1969, Greta and her husband Ernie Knutson bought Velva lumber with Carl and Francis Loftesnes (a family connection: Ernie was a first cousin of my paternal grandfather, Irvin Knutson. Greta and Ernie sold their farmstead and acreage to my father in 1968, and that is where I grew up).
When we met, Thelma mentioned that when she was growing up, she was responsible for having supper ready when her parents came home from the lumberyard in the evening, a lighter meal because her family’s largest meal was at noon. Supper usually entailed cold meat, like leftover pork chops, bread, and fried potatoes. They didn’t have sandwiches—all the components were separate, and nothing like the PB and J. The family might eat peanut butter on buns, but would not make the sandwich you might expect kids to make today.
Thelma met her future husband Richard Lysne, through his younger sisters, with whom Thelma went to high school after their family moved from Silva, a small town near Rugby, ND. After marrying in 1960, Thelma and Richard had four children: Pace, Scott, Brent, and Stuart; they also have been blessed with seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Richard passed in 2018. Thelma worked at the Velva Clinic for many years and has been a very active member of Oak Valley Lutheran. She recently trained as a lay pastor with the ELCA’s GIFTS (Growing in Faith to Serve) program and leads worship often at Oak Valley, as well as at any churches who contact her needing a worship leader. Right now, Thelma is serving a term on the church council and the archives/history committee.
Thelma noted that she still makes many of the recipes from the cookbook, including her own and Pat Beyer’s rice broccoli casserole for Christmas. She also mentioned that she’s found anything by Pat Beyer, Pat Buen, and Geraldine Florence to be great and recommended Sue Jacobson’s Carmel Krispies as particularly delicious. Reflecting her continued love of baking, Thelma’s fifteen contributions to The Joy of Sharing include nine quick breads and sweets, one sweet salad, and several casseroles: “Waffles,” “Fruit Cake,” “Chocolate Drop Cookies,” “Brownies,” “Baby Ruth Bars,” “Chocolate Chip Bars,” “Krumkage,” “Fattigman,” “Lemonade Pie,” “Blueberry Salad,” “Spaghetti Casserole,” “Hamburger Stroganoff,” “Wild Rice Casserole,” “Cheeseburger Pie,” “Taco Casserole,” and of course, “Mrs. Nixon’s Hot Chicken Salad.”
This post is part of an ongoing series in which I make and reflect on recipes and the people who contributed them to the 1985 Oak Valley Lutheran Church compiled cookbook, The Joy of Sharing.
