Your potato salad?

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

Not sure I dare admit this. My favourite potato salad consists of nothing more than potatoes (who'd have thought it), a little salt and pepper, and good old British salad cream. Personally I cannot stand mayonnaise, and find this to be an ideal substitute, even if it does make foodies wrinkle their noses up in disdain. To each their own, I guess.

Salad cream is hard to describe, and I'm not sure if it's even sold outside the UK. Shares some similarities with mayo, but is tangy rather than creamy. Elicits the same kind of opinions as Marmite or Vegemite, in that people either love it or detest it.

 
As I said

with the oatmeal cake, this is just my version of potato salad.

I had an email asking for proportions, so here goes:

Ma was a trained home economist, but this she just threw together. I follow her example.

6-8 potatoes, When you peel and cut them, you don't want the pieces tiny, nor do you want them to be huge rocks, either.

1-2 onions, Sometimes just plain brown/yellow onions, sometimes a sweet one like a Vidalia or Maui or Texas 1015, sometimes an "Italian" red onion.
I can, and do respect Terry's(?) opinion about too much onion, but to me, potato salad needs some onion.

1-2 stalks of celery

1-3 dill pickles

The Pimiento is OPTIONAL. It's mostly for colour. A dusting of mild paprika on top would do just as well.

3/4 cup plus-minus of mayonnaise. Don't want it swimming, or dry.

1/2-3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper. If there are going to be lots of children about, omit it. Most small children dislike pepper.

Salt, taste and see. Remember, the mayonnaise, celery, and dill pickle will provide sodium, too.

Again, OPTIONAL- hardcooked egg. If you are using it just for garnish, slice the suckers. As an ingredient, cut it fairly large, so it can be spotted easily :)

Keep it cool while serving, and if there is any left, it keeps nicely covered in the fridge for 3-4 days, (if it stays around that long.)

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Oh, yes,

do cut the celery and dill pickles, don't stick the celery stalks in the bowl, and don't "hide the pickle!"

I like a fairly fine crosscut on the celery, and large-ish dice on the pickle(s)

L/Mb
 
Large-ish?

Lawrence,

I totally agree with you. I think its sad to put so much effort into making your own salad and then have the pickles look like you threw in a spoon of relish.

For the same reason, I never use a fork on the edge of pie crust, it makes it look boughten.

I kind of have a thing about cutting on the bias and making the food visually interesting as well as pleasant to the palate.

I chunk the potatoes large-ish, chop the eggs in half or quarters so they are large-ish and then chop the condiments smaller, but the same size, so that there is a large-ish and rustic look to the finished salad.

I also combine the ingredients in a shallow pan so the wets can be incorporated into the drys by lifting, rather than stirring, without mashing the potatoes and losing the eggs into the mayo. Then I lift it into the serving bowl.

Thanks, Lawrence for taking so much time to write all the details and make us all look forward to tasting the finished products with a vision already set in our mind's eye.

Kelly
 
so much for my diet

This just keeps getting better.
My mum, of course, makes my favourite potato salad - she got it from her mother:
Steam the potatoes in their skins. (Pressure cooker)
Peel.
Cool slightly.
Cut in slices.
While still warm marinate in:
vinegar (I use lemon juice) and vegtable broth
with
a dash of sugar
Let it set until a bit cooler
fold in oil and one
finely chopped dill pickle
a finely chopped apple
half a celerac (celery root)
finely chopped parsley or dill if no pickle

Serve at once and do not keep, even overnight - not much danger of that, it never made it round the table all the way...

Today I know this recipe as the typical Bavarian "Warmer Kartoffelsalat". It is wonderful.
 
lawrence, your PS sounds fabulous. i agree about the onion, it IS important to mince the onion. i suspect the legion of onion haters out there has childhood memories of biting into big pieces of strong, hot onions! one of my friends here in S.A. she makes a mostly traditional potato salad, but she adds SUGAR?!? i remember the surprise i got when i first tried it. you could taste it!
 
Dutch Potato Salad...?

Don't think this is really a Dutch recipe. I got this same card from a friend a long time ago.

DutchPotatoSalad.jpg
 
Louis,

Anything with vinegar and mustard gets called "Dutch" in some parts of the 'States. And "Dutch" usually is short for "Pennsylvania Dutch" which is a corruption of "Deutsch".
It can't be Dutch in any case - there is not one bit of alcohol or cannabis in it...
Keven :-)))
(ducks and runs)
 
But Keven, don't you know that spacecake is out of fashion nowadays? And the Dutch are very fashionable people as you might know! BTW, nobody with a bit of sense would use alcohol and cannabis at the same time.

A friend of mine used to live on a houseboat quite near the point where the Germans came into town especially on one of the many German holidays. Often some German would come to the door to ask if he could buy some cannabis, thinking living on a houseboat would be an indication for cannabis use. We had many good laughs about that.

Now where is that slap I wanted to give you? LOL
 
ah, heck - Louis,

whatever it is, it ain't coming through.
But your comment on the German tourists fits. The last time I taught a seminar in Amsterdam the mornings were a complete write off.
What style of potatoes would you recommend with Hollandse nieuwe (maatjes?) Please don't tell me the Dutch smother them in that sticky, extra-fat mayonnaisy---na.
 
oh my, that

sounds very good indeed. I have had to make potato salads for hot, muggy summer outings...and cheated by doing that with silk-tofu, vinegar and oil...if you do the herbs well, everybody thinks it is the real thing...
Not that I wouldn't prefer a real mayo, mind you.
 
Mayo

Commercially made mayo gets a bad rap it doesn't deserve. Like any USDA approved product made in the US, it has low PH, is very ACIDIC, HIGH in FAT, which retards bacterial growth and all the products are PASTEURIZED.
All of these conditions inhibit and retard bacterial growth.
The mayo actually helps to retard the dangers inherent in cooked EGGS and strangely enough POTATOES. Potatoes are considered a potential food borne illness hazard and have to follow safe holding and cooling patterns in America.
Add the pickles and vinegar and you boost the safety tolerance.

Kelly
 
Keven,

"Hollandse Nieuwe" is never eaten with potato salad. You pick it up by the tail and eat it out of your hand. Preferably without onions! And no mayonaise at all!! Another way to eat a herring is to put it on rye bread.

This year there is a problem with the "Hollandse Nieuwe". There is not enough plankton in the sea which is the food for the herring. That means that the herrings aren't fat enough yet to start the season. The opening has been postponed until June 14th. Hopefully then we will have "Hollandse Nieuwe".

Here's a picture of how to eat a "Hollandse Nieuwe".

img-220306-012.onlineBild.jpg


And here's a picture of herring on rye bread. Here it is served with onions, which I haven't seen very often, but it was the only picture I could find.

img.asp


BTW, the "thing" was a Quicktime file with the sound of a slap... LOL
 
My...cheek...is red.

And now I'm gonna show it to my 204cm tall boyfriend, Horst, and he'll come do ya good.
I wish...No boyfriend, and sure as heck not 204cm...
*sigh*
That sounds just great and just horrid - we ain't had no Matjes here neither...and what passed for "herring" this evening at the beer garden was, I swear, last year's in oil and salt.
Igitt.
Which of the beauties is you? The cute guy with the skewer through his tongue or Antje with the fish?
I am sending this on to a friend of mine who is stuck doing business in the 'States and misses the low-lands something horrible...
Thanks!
 
I've actually got a big bowl of potato salad maserating in the fridge right now. Call me a heretic, but I hate celery and don't use it in anything I cook. I start by boiling the potatoes and eggs with a few peeled garlic cloves (adds a subtle little something). My dressing is mayonnaise, a little vinegar, a little sugar, (accurate measurements!) a palmful of chives, a little dill, and some onion powder if I have it. Today I splurged and crumbled in some bacon. A big, fat, diet-shattering Memorial Day to all!
 
Back
Top