You Only Need 4 Ingredients To Recreate Jackie Kennedy's Classic Casserole

American restaurateurs have long known that even the humblest dish sounds elegant if you give it a French name. This holds true in the White House kitchen, as well, with one notable example being the casserole called Marie-Blanche that was served at a 1961 dinner in honor of First Lady Jackie Kennedy's sister and brother-in-law, Princess and Prince Radziwill. Despite its sophisticated-sounding moniker, casserole Marie-Blanche is made from ingredients that just about anybody would have on hand. The base is egg noodles, the same ones used in chicken soup, noodle kugel, or the kind of beef stroganoff that strayed far from its Russian roots and wound up as a suburban staple. These cooked noodles are mixed with butter, sour cream, and cottage cheese, then baked,  and that's pretty much it. To break up all that whiteness, the dish can be garnished with chives, and it's permissible to use salt and pepper to season it. Anything else, however, might be a bit too radical for that early '60s spirit.

Believe it or not, this simple concoction was featured on the menu of that long-ago event alongside such dishes as saumon mousseline Normande (salmon mousse), poulet a l'estragon (chicken with tarragon), and baba aux fraises (yeast cake with strawberries). The Kennedy White House was known for fine dining, and those other dishes do seem sufficiently fancy for a state dinner. The casserole, however, must have added a touch of the ordinary since it was the kind of thing that wouldn't look out of place at a church basement potluck.

Jackie Kennedy, like most first ladies, was not in the kitchen whipping up casserole Marie-Blanche for her guests since White House chef René Verdon and his staff did a stellar job with the catering. Even so, several recipes are still strongly associated with her, including the buttermilk waffles and New England fish chowder said to be among her husband's favorites. One dish she may or may not have been proud to claim was a dessert allegedly served in the White House, although possibly not at any state dinners. It was composed of different canned fruits (including prunes) mixed with sugar and topped with sour cream. (Umm, thanks, there are worse vintage recipes, but we'll stick with that mid-century marvel, Jell-O salad.)

Another recipe, a grilled chicken dish said to have originated at Jackie's childhood summer home, is interesting because the chicken is marinated in yogurt. While the recipe doesn't have a specific date attached to it, yogurt was pretty much relegated to a health food niche up through the 1970s, so this dish might have been pretty radical for its time (whenever that was). What's more, the use of Middle Eastern-inspired spices such as ground coriander and cardamom makes the recipe seem almost contemporary. Was Jackie Kennedy — or Jackie Onassis, as she was known after her remarriage to a Greek multimillionaire — a culinary pioneer, or was she just happy to eat whatever was set before her? At any rate, if she was dining on this chicken dish later in life, her tastes may have evolved since that early '60s cottage cheese casserole.