I posted about how to cook green beans like my granny and in that post I mentioned my mom's potato salad. My mom makes, hands down, the best potato salad I have ever eaten. When she makes it, she knows to make enough for me to have some to take home.
I make a good version, really close to hers but I have not quite gotten down the nuances of hers so it is still the best ever. The following recipe is as close to a reasonable facsimile as I have been able to come up with since, like my grandmother, my mom doesn't measure anything she puts into hers. She tastes it as she goes along and I recommend you do the same if you try this recipe.
To get this recipe, I made a batch of tater salad and wrote down what I did as I was doing it so what follows is the result. This recipe is deceptively simple. It is my considered opinion that the key to just how good this is has to do with the combination of warm ingredients and the order they are added to the mixture.
To get this recipe, I made a batch of tater salad and wrote down what I did as I was doing it so what follows is the result. This recipe is deceptively simple. It is my considered opinion that the key to just how good this is has to do with the combination of warm ingredients and the order they are added to the mixture.
5 lbs potatoes, peeled and quartered (this salad is better with the potatoes peeled)
1/2 Cup Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip (keep the jar handy, you will probably need to add a little more)
3 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar in which you dissolve 1 teaspoon of sugar
1/2 Cup Sweet Pickles (any kind will do, but we use homemade pickles)
1-1 1/2 large sweet onions, coarsely chopped (I use two...I like lots of onion)
1/2 Cup Chopped Celery
3 Hard-boiled Eggs, peeled and coarsely chopped
What You Do:
Cook the potatoes in salted water until well done. Drain potatoes and leave in the pot (take if off the heat). Add the above ingredients in the order they are listed. Stir the potato salad well after the addition of each ingredient but do not stir with a heavy hand. (This is not a very chunky potato salad; it actually has the consistency of extremely lumpy mashed potatoes. Because the potatoes are warm, they are soft, so you want to make sure not to stir too much.)
If potato salad seems too dry after you add the mayo, add some more until it stirs easily, but do not add too much. Because you are adding the ingredients to warm potatoes in a warm pot, the flavors blend very well. A big key here to this recipe is to make sure you keep tasting it as you make it. If it need more salt, add more salt. If if needs more pickles, add more pickles. You get the idea. You can add the hard cooked eggs at the end, if you want. Put into your serving dish and garnish with a sprinkle of paprika or a sprig of parsley, if you like.
After all ingredients are blended, let the salad "rest" at room temp for a while before you refrigerate. We always make this about 30 minutes before the meal and it is served warm. Of course, it is good cold, too, but it is so good warm that I have been know to nuke leftovers...which we always have because this recipe makes a LOT of potato salad!
There is also a story that goes along with this recipe. More than that, it is an explanation about why sometimes I seem to be going on with little asides and special instructions in my recipes.
Many years ago, I had a friend who was a very young newlywed (her 16, him 20). One day, she called me up and asked me for this recipe. She said her husband had raved over how good my potato salad was and that she should learn how to make it.
During that conversation, she mentioned that she and her husband were going to have a picnic on Saturday, which was the next day, to celebrate their 6 week anniversary (how cute is that?) and she wanted to make it to surprise him. Since the only thing she could make with any skill was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with oreo cookies on the side, she thought that a decent meal was an excellent celebration. So, I gave her what I thought were detailed instructions.
I knew that this girl didn't know how to cook very well and I should have thought about the recipe more, but I made too many assumptions about her level of cooking skill. The next day, the phone rang and when I answered it was my friend, almost hysterical, sobbing into the phone. When I got her calmed down, I asked her what the problem was.
She said that she had made my potato salad and that it was the worst thing that had ever been placed on a plate. She said it was so awful that her hubby had yelled at her for wasting all that money on the ingredients and that he planned on eating out for the rest of his life if that was the best she could do (sensitive guy, no?).
I was really at a loss for what could have been the problem. It is a relative simple recipe, nothing that required any special skills or tools, so I asked her to repeat to me exactly what steps she had followed. Between sniffles, she said, "First I made the instant mashed potatoes....."
Where my recipe instructed "use 5 lbs of cooked potatoes", she had used 5 lbs of instant mashed potatoes to which she added all of the rest of the above ingredients. I can only imagine the resulting miasma she had created. No wonder Mr. Sensitive was miffed.
