"Casino" Salad Dressing

I took a stab at making Casino salad dressing today - not because I need something new on my salad, but because of something my father-in-law used to do - so this is another recipe inspired by him. My Honey used to brag about his grilled shrimp all the time, and I've always felt short-changed about never actually having had any. Trust me. There IS a relationship!

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While raising his children, Elmer would frequently treat his family to dinner at a restaurant in one of the seaside hotels in Atlantic Beach, Florida; and one of his favorite dishes to order there was their grilled shrimp. He liked it so much that he persistently begged the chef for his recipe; but was routinely refused.

Then came the time when the chef had decided to retire, and doubtless knowing that his recipe would likely be abandoned by his replacement, he finally acquiesced to Elmer's entreaties. The "secret ingredient" it seems, was Kraft® Casino salad dressing, used as a basting sauce!

Now apparently Kraft discontinued production of Casino dressing, long before the advent of the internet; and as far as I can determine, there are zero recipes for the dressing in any internet archive accessible to me. The only clue I could find concerning it's composition lay in an image of an old paper advertisement, showing the label of a bottle of the dressing.

Magnifying the image for readability disclosed that Kraft described their Casino dressing as a "gay and spicy" French Dressing. That being the case, I set about making something that might fit that description.

Ingredients:

1. If you are diabetic, or preparing food for a diabetic, you may want to substitute an artificial sweetener here.
   
   

1	cup	Salad oil, your choice
½	cup	Vinegar, red wine or cider
2	Tbs	Ketchup
1	Tbs	Worcestershire sauce
1	Tbs	Lemon juice
1	tsp	Sugar1
½	tsp	Salt
½	tsp	Dry mustard powder
½	tsp	Onion powder
½	tsp	Paprika
¼	tsp	Black pepper, ground
¼	tsp	Garlic powder
⅛	tsp	Celery seed
⅛	tsp	Cayenne powder

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a seal-able container and shake well, or puree in a blender to achieve full mixing.

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Makes approximately 1½ cup of dressing.

We tried out the product as a normal salad dressing and it did very well; despite the fact that French is not a favorite for either of us. Even so, this may not be the final iteration of the recipe. The door is open to yet more experimentation.

In any case, the purpose of this exercise was not to find something new to put on my salad, but to re-create a critical component of the grilled shrimp dish that Elmer, and My Honey, loved so much. Actually describing the process of creating that dish, however, is a blog for another time.