Potato Salad

[Heather]

Old-fashioned: Yukon Golds, celery, radishes, sweet onions, hard-cooked eggs. Potatoes get a bath of lemon juice and a little canola oil while still hot. Dressing is mayonnaise (preferably homemade), a little cider vinegar, S&P, and paprika.

Variations?

[Pat]

Old-fashioned: Yukon Golds, celery, radishes, sweet onions, hard-cooked eggs. Potatoes get a bath of lemon juice and a little canola oil while still hot. Dressing is mayonnaise (preferably homemade), a little cider vinegar, S&P, and paprika.

Variations?

Hmm. I hadn't thought of radishes in potato salad before. That should be good. I'll have to try it.

Mostly I use all-purpose potatoes for mine. Unless I'm following a recipe, I tend not to make it the same way every time. Generally, it's celery (and/or a little celery seed). sweet pickle relish (or finely chopped pickles), green onions or onion juice, mayo (sometimes combined with a bit of yogurt), Dijon mustard, and chopped hard boiled eggs. Sometimes I'll add some fresh dill.

I also mix the potatoes with a little oil when they're hot and a small amount of vinegar. I usually use white wine vinegar or cider vinegar, a little added when they're hot and a little with the mayo and mustard.

[Waitman]

I usually us e new potatoes and, after boiling, toss them with olive oil, chives parsley and tarragon. Sometimes some mustard finds its way in there, too. I don't add meat, but I like to serve these with a good sausage.

[Heather]

Olive oil, lemon juice, orange juice, diced onion, capers, parsley, fresh dill, salt and pepper. Light and fresh.

[Pat]

Sometimes I put crumbled bacon into potato salad too, but I've never really cared for warm potato salad with the cooked bacon dressing. Every time I make that, I remember that I've never really liked it

[Anna Blume]

For picnics vs. home: Radishes, bacon, minced celery, red onion, parsley or chives. 1 chopped hard-boiled egg in family tradition, though I leave it out. To flavor and bind: mayo, bacon fat, a little red wine vinegar & celery seed. S & P.

[pax]

I love German potato salad. Yum yum yum. And I have taters. And pancetta. And PMS. Oh baby.

Really, is there a bad version of a potato salad? *rubs my tummy*

[The Hersch]

I make several different potato salads, but for the most traditional American-style-with-hard-boiled-egg version, I take the egg or eggs and thoroughly mash them with a potato masher and incorporate the result in the dressing, which is mayonnaise, olive oil, Dijon mustard, vinegar, s&p, and the eggs. Maybe a few drops of Tabasco sauce (not enough so you'd know it was there). I'm not sure why, but I find that discrete, recognizable chunks of cooked egg-white in potato salad actually disgust me, which is why I mash the eggs. I also really dislike potato skin in this style of potato salad, although it's fine in some others.

One of my favorite things at Ethiopian restaurants has always been that potato-salady thing they do.

[synaesthesia]

A slightly Asian inspired one - edamame, small shrimp, wasabi mayo. We used to always have chunks of really good ham in ours growing up. I also like sugary sweet peas.

[The Hersch]

I love German potato salad. Yum yum yum. And I have taters. And pancetta. And PMS. Oh baby.

Really, is there a bad version of a potato salad? *rubs my tummy*

German potato salad is an interesting subject. I've spent a lot of time in Germany, and eaten enormous amounts of food there. My German experience has been overwhelmingly in Bavaria, where I've never encountered anything like the warm potato salad with bacon that is what most people in the US mean by German potato salad. I think maybe they do that style in Northern Germany, though. When I was in high school (in NoVA), the mother of a friend of mine was from Berlin, and she made a potato salad along those lines, and it was awfully good. Anyway, Bavarian potato salad is usually just boiled potatoes, onions, beef broth, vinegar, and oil, served at room temperature, and it too can be awfully good.

As to bad versions of potato salad, there are such things. Put Miracle Whip in it, for example.

[Mrs. B]

For picnics vs. home: Radishes, bacon, minced celery, red onion, parsley or chives. 1 chopped hard-boiled egg in family tradition, though I leave it out. To flavor and bind: mayo, bacon fat, a little red wine vinegar & celery seed. S & P.

I really don't care for egg in my potato salad (or tuna, chicken, turkey etc) but it's a must in egg salad.

[Hannah]

My German experience has been overwhelmingly in Bavaria, where I've never encountered anything like the warm potato salad with bacon that is what most people in the US mean by German potato salad. I think maybe they do that style in Northern Germany, though.

Yup. Kartoffelsalat is everywhere in far northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), although as I recall they tended to use a little less actual bacon in it - bacon fat/flavor, yes, but fewer actual chunks - than you'd see in a German potato salad over here. Of course, they made up for that by putting extra bonus meat in just about everything else.

[Heather]

German potato salad is an interesting subject. I've spent a lot of time in Germany, and eaten enormous amounts of food there. My German experience has been overwhelmingly in Bavaria, where I've never encountered anything like the warm potato salad with bacon that is what most people in the US mean by German potato salad. I think maybe they do that style in Northern Germany, though.

I have a recipe for Kartoffelsalat mit Speck from my great-grandmother, who emigrated from Chemnitz (which was later Karlmarxstadt, and is now Chemnitz again) in the early part of this century and it includes bacon, cooked onions, raw onions, radishes, and a cooked dressing that incorporates sugar, flour, cider vinegar, and the bacon fat.

Found it: Sylvia Gonia's Warmer Kartoffelsalat

2 lb. small white potatoes

1 t. salt

1/2 c. diced bacon

1/2 c. minced onion

1-1/2 T. flour

4 t. sugar

1 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

1/4-1/3 c. cider vinegar

1/2 c. water

1/4 c. minced onion

1/2 c. sliced radishes

Cook potatoes in their jackets with 1 t. salt about 35 min. Peel and cut into 1/4-inch slices.

In a small skillet, fry bacon until crisp. Add the 1/2 c. minced onion and fry just until tender (do not brown).

Meanhile, mix flour, sugar, 1 t. salt, and pepper. Stir in vinegar and water until smooth. Add to bacon. Simmer, stirring, until slightly thickened.

Pour hot dressing over potatoes. Add 1/4 c. minced onion and radishes and toss. Serves 4-6.

[The Hersch]

That recipe is interesting, including raw and cooked onion. As I recall, the Berliner lady who was my friend's mother put chopped pickles in hers and no radishes. It was a long time ago, so I can't remember for sure, but I think hers had only raw onions. I suppose I really must visit northern Germany for some research. Maybe when the dollar is a bit stronger.

Chemnitz will always be Karl-Marx-Stadt to me. Actually, I see from googling that there's a Restaurant Marx in current-day Chemnitz. I'll bet they have a Kartoffelsalat to knock your Strümpfe off.

[Anna Blume]

I really don't care for egg in my potato salad (or tuna, chicken, turkey etc) but it's a must in egg salad.

As opposed to soft tofu ?

* * *

Thanks for the recipe above, Heather. It sounds as if our picnic p.s. is very similar minus the canola oil. I always like to pour red wine vinegar over still-warm potatoes.

I've always been told is that boiling the potatoes w skins intact results in greater flavor. Not sure how true that is, but I conform to tradition.

Something else I really like, Italian-style: After peeling the still warm potatoes and dosing them with lots of red wine vinegar, coat them with olive oil. Add stubs of boiled carrots (preferably from your garden or market) and chunks of roasted or boiled beets. Salt and pepper. No onion. No herbs. Eat room temperature, though best outdoors with grilled meats.

[Heather]

Thanks for the recipe above, Heather. It sounds as if our picnic p.s. is very similar minus the canola oil. I always like to pour red wine vinegar over still-warm potatoes.

I do vinegar sometimes too, but the lemon juice adds something very sunny and summery.

I love this for picnic lunches: eensy little potatoes, tuna packed in olive oil, chopped cornichons, capers, egg white. Dressing made with minced onion, minced parsley, olive oil, and mashed hard cooked yolks.

[Pat]

For a more elaborate potato salad, I like this recipe from Bon Appetit.. It's hard to believe it was published a decade ago already . It's good for a dinner party.

[Seanchai]

I'm a big fan of a grilled potato salad with warm bacon dressing, scallions, shallots, champagne vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard. Man, I could put that on my breakfast cereal every day.

[squidsdc]

I do vinegar sometimes too, but the lemon juice adds something very sunny and summery.

I love this for picnic lunches: eensy little potatoes, tuna packed in olive oil, chopped cornichons, capers, egg white. Dressing made with minced onion, minced parsley, olive oil, and mashed hard cooked yolks.

Add some macaroni and mayo to that and you're not far off from a Hawaiian Potato Salad.

[Anna Blume]

Potatoes are supposed to be one of those five things best purchased organic due to chemicals used in large-scale agribusiness. Instead of bowing religiously to cautionary advice, I'm going w small, local farms vetted by trust-worthy market folk.

So, from the farmers who produce wonderfully flavorful creamy little new potatoes, this time around I picked up larger white, red & Yukon Gold potatoes to make a salad. It seemed like a good idea in yesterday's heat.

Peeled them (mostly) just to expose as much flesh as possible and doused them in very good red wine vinegar. S & P, then unfiltered olive oil. Slivers of purplish spring onion--just the bulb, using the thick, tubular greens to flavor chickpeas as they cooked. Tossed in the chickpeas. Steamed Romanesco (6 minutes, then shocked). Capers.

Perfectly honest: two good salads here vs. one. Capers are great in potato salad and complement cauliflower/Romanesco, but the latter was not the best choice for a running mate. On the other hand, the potatoes were incredible when still a bit warm, just after being dressed. I am going to combine the reserved ones with roasted beets. (A thinned, garlicky hummus might be a good sub for mayo in a potato salad with roasted red peppers.)

Were it not for the heat, I probably would have roasted the Romanesco. Even though I bought it a week ago at the market (Spring Valley), it was amazingly fresh. Florets turned a subtle shade of spring green and retained some of the purple. Wish I had the lemon I thought was in the fridge to squirt on them. No matter. Delicate and refreshing prepared this way.