Salad: Dang I make good potato salad ;-)

Subject: Dang I make good potato salad ;-)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
From: Koko
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 13:40:23 -0700
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Thanks to Bud's famous recipe.
It was a little dry this morning so I added some non-fat yogurt this morning. mmmmm
I used red potatoes and added cornichons and red onion.

http://i14.tinypic.com/6gcmsfp.jpg [dead link. not in archive.org]

Bud's recipe with his comments:

Bud's Wisconsin Potato Salad

salads/dressing

16 medium-small potatoes
3/4 cup mayonaise; at least you will probably want more
1 1/2 tsp yellow mustard; not dry (the kind from the squeeze bottle)
12 eggs, hard boiled
1 cup apple cider vinegar, divided; minimum amount
1-1/2 tbs pickle relish
3/4 tbs dry parsley flakes or twice that if; fresh is available
1 big pinch celery salt
1/2 medium white onion, diced fairly small, you can use twice or three times; if you prefer
4 celery stalks, split down middle of wider; end, then chopped about 1/4 inch or slightly smaller; pieces (to your own taste/texture. again you can use; more or less if you desir

This is not a light potato salad, but if you go to the trouble to make it a day ahead, you'll be rewarded with a really excellent potato salad.

Gather ingredients. Boil potatoes whole. If your potato size varies much, put in the larger ones first. A medium sized potato will take ABOUT 25 minutes total. A smaller one maybe 18 minutes. One of the keys here is to boil the potatoes till cooked but still a little firm. If they are cooked till soft, then the subsequent stirring will render the salad mushy. You don't want them crunchy, but just cooked and still firm. That's the first secret!

Peel the potatoes when they are still warm. The warmer the better. Peeling them AFTER they are cooked seems to make a difference in taste.They MUST not cool entirely or the vinegar will not be absorbed properly. I peel them almost straight out of the pot when still darn hot. That's the second secret!

Cut them into irregular chunks, little wedges about an inch or slightly less on a side with the greatest thickness about a half inch. Just cut a little off one end, then cut another small chunk off, then keep cutting pieces off in random sizes of varying shapes, mostly you end up with very irregular pyramidal shapes....You want pieces big enough to not turn into mush but small enough for ...your liking! The 'edges_ will eventually break off and mush up onto the salad while the larger parts of the bodies will remain whole. You are cutting, peeling and dropping them into a large bowl. There really should be two people doing this or one should work as quickly as possible.

After you have cut up a potato or two, sprinkle them fairly generously with vinegar and stir around a bit in the bowl..just a bit so you get the vinegar that fell to the bottom of the bowl on the potatoes. As you finish a potato or two, sprinkle each (they should be warm to hot when you sprinkle, if possible...THAT's the BIG secret to this recipe) fairly generously.

I put my finger over the end of the bottle of cider vinegar and drizzly drip it onto the potatoes making sure each is sprinkled well. If you run out of the half cup, just use more. Each potato gets a fairly generous sprinkling of vinegar. THAT point is more important than the measurement of the 1/2 cup of vinegar above. Note: I don't measure out a half cup and then pour it on them. That would be awkward. I did measure this once so I could have a recipe for a friend and I learned I sprinkled ABOUT a half a cup. Salt them at this point; I don't know how much....Just salt them like you like.

The vinegar needs a comment. The importance of a generous sprinkling of vinegar while the potatoes are warm/hot can't be over emphasized. They will soak up the vinegar. I am always amazed at how much vinegar it takes and how when they are done, the vinegar is tasted, but the dish is not 'vinegary_ like a hot german potato salad which I hate....trust in a good sprinkling of vinegar at this point and if in doubt, sprinkle a little more!

Stir in the other ingredients, leaving the eggs to last. Chop up the eggs, slicing, cutting in whatever size/shape you wish but we are not talking about whole or half eggs here. Cut them up. The yolks will fall apart when sliced up and that's ok. Stir all the eggs into the rest of the mix. The yolks will incorporate into the salad and you don't have to worry about them; don't stir forever or worry about being gentle or anything. Just mix it up.

Add the other 1/2 cup of vinegar. If you are a real chicken, you may wish to add only a 1/4 cup but it will probably take it all (and maybe even a bit more eventually). Take a taste. Add some more salt if
needed.

It will be good but not perfect at this point. Taste it again. Note the vinegar flavor peeking through. It may even be fairly vinegery (that's a word, right?) at this point, in fact it should be almost too strong with vinegar. The vinegar flavor will diminish over the next night and you'll have to add more later, so don't worry about adding too much. Add as much as you think tastes good. Cover and put in a fridge over night. THAT's the last big secret. Taste again after sitting in the fridge overnight.

Notice that the vinegar flavor is much softer. Add some more vinegar and let that absorb for an hour or two. You may well have used much more than the 1 cup total by this point. Salt to taste if needed.

You can serve this without the overnight setting but it will truly be a noticeably better salad the next day. You will want to adjust the amount of mayo to suit your taste. I like a pretty mayoee salad. Probably even a bit more than this calls for. Some don't. You may want more or less celery. My wife doesn't like any (egads!)

None of these amounts need be exact, but they are close enough for a good starting point. The key is to use more vinegar than you could have imagined, sprinkling well while the potatoes are hot and firm but not crunchy. The rest is all 'to taste'.

I've never served this to a group that didn't ohh and ahh over it. It is a bit of an effort but if you take the time you will have some of the best potato salad ever.

Contributor: Bud on rfc
From: Andy (q)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:02:14 -0500
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Koko said...
> Contributor: Bud on rfc

Easily the longest potato salad recipe I've ever seen!

Serves: 1 ?

There BETTER NOT be any measure typos!!! <VBG>
From: Blinky the Shark (no.spam at box.invalid)
Date: 8 Jul 2007 21:27:06 GMT
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Andy wrote:
> Easily the longest potato salad recipe I've ever seen!

The actual recipe isn't so long; it's the novella that supersizes it.
:)
From: Andy (q)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:32:34 -0500
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Blinky the Shark said...
> The actual recipe isn't so long; it's the novella that supersizes it.

You obviously have the abridged version. ;)
From: Koko
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 14:43:34 -0700
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Andy wrote:

>Easily the longest potato salad recipe I've ever seen!

I know huh. I was waiting for the mini-series.

>Serves: 1 ?

But of course, what kind of foodie are you?

>There BETTER NOT be any measure typos!!! <VBG>

Lets hope not.
From reading the directions I think he meant them more as guidelines.
From: Andy (q)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:48:51 -0500
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Koko said...
> But of course, what kind of foodie are you?

I WAS an all-you-can-eat foodie! Thank you for asking. :)
From: Terry (Kilowatt at charter.net)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:46:25 -0400
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I take a couple of cans of new potatoes
Mayo
Mustard
Onion
Sour Cream
Paprika

Done
4 min

:)
From: Giusi (decobabe at gmail.com)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 23:53:20 +0200
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Terry wrote:
> I take a couple of cans of new potatoes
> Mayo
> Mustard
> Onion
> Sour Cream
> Paprika
>
> Done
> 4 min

Are we having a race? Cause you could just pick up those waxy little balls and dip them into that stuff and it would be even faster.
From: Andy (q)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:54:52 -0500
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Terry said...
> I take a couple of cans of new potatoes
> Mayo
> Mustard
> Onion
> Sour Cream
> Paprika
>
> Done
> 4 min

LOL!!!

Tryin' to undercut the competition are ya? ;)

Serves: 1?
From: Koko
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:16:28 -0700
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Terry wrote:
>I take a couple of cans of new potatoes
>Mayo
>Mustard
>Onion
>Sour Cream
>Paprika
>
>Done
>4 min

Sheesh, there's one in every crowd. :-)
From: Kris (shannongr at hotmail.com)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:09:29 -0700
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Koko wrote:
> Thanks to Bud's famous recipe.
> It was a little dry this morning so I added some non-fat yogurt this
> morning. mmmmm
> I used red potatoes and added cornichons and red onion.

Sounds good to me! A nice traditional recipe. For variation, I sometimes like to add some curry powder to mine.
From: Abe (noone at nowhere.com)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 23:38:51 -0700
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>Thanks to Bud's famous recipe.
>It was a little dry this morning so I added some non-fat yogurt this
>morning. mmmmm
>I used red potatoes and added cornichons and red onion.

Nice writeup for those who don't know the technique for good potato salad.
From: blake murphy (blakepm at verizon.net)
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:09:29 GMT
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Koko wrote:
>This is not a light potato salad, but if you go to the trouble to make
>it a day ahead, you'll be rewarded with a really excellent potato
>salad.

my technique (or rather that of 'the everything cookbook,' betty wason) is similar, but the oil is added first:

8 potatoes, cooked, peeled, diced (usually red-skinned)
1 small onion, grated
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup salad oil (i use olive oil)
2 tbs minced green pepper (i usually don't bother)
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup minced celery
1/4 cup vinegar (i use rice vinegar)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
(if onion is omitted 1 tbs coarse dijon mustard)

do not overcook potatoes. combine ingredients in order given. chill.

but start while potatoes are still warm.