Potato Salad in Pictures

Potato Salad in Pictures

For a medium amount – the four of us eat this much in two or three days.

Hard boil 6 eggs – 20 minutes.  Put in the refrigerator to cool.

About 4 pounds white or yellow potatoes.  Use small-medium sized ones.

Wash and cook whole in a large pot of water.  Cover completely with water.  Bring to a low boil and then simmer until the skins just begin to split.

Gently drain water and let sit until cool enough to touch.  They are rather fragile at this point and will split apart if moved around too much.  Plus they are hot potatoes!   

Let them cool for as long as you can.  The salad will be mushy if you make it while the potatoes are hot.  Optimally they are chilled completely in the refrigerator but I usually use them at room temperature.

Make the dressing in a small mixing bowl.

Chop four sweet pickles.

 

Add 3 or 4 heaping serving spoonfuls of mayonnaise - about 3/4 cup or more.   I use a standard serving spoon with a wide bowl that holds 1 TBLSpn when filled to the brim.  Mayo mounds up a lot.

Add two dollops of yellow mustard - about 2-3 tsp.

Judge the amount of mustard by color and taste.  

Add about 1 TBLsp of the sweet pickle juice.

Add about 2 tsp sugar (this is the first time my sugar has ever seen a spoon - usually I just sprinkle it in from a sugar bowl).

Add another tablespoon +/- of apple cider vinegar - I used red wine vinegar here so you could see it better and the salad tasted just fine.  White vinegar also works.

Mix well and taste.  Let the flavor spread all over your tongue so you can capture both the tanginess and sweetness.  You should note a mild vinegar tang with a definite mustard flavor and mild sweetness.  Now is a good time to adjust the flavor.

Add about 1/2 tsp salt and mix well.  Potatoes are very bland and need quite a bit of salt.

 
Put the dressing in the refrigerator to cool while you prepare the potatoes.

Peel the potatoes with a small knife.  For cutting you want to use a DULL paring knife.  I used a serrated one for about 20 years until it disappeared on a camping trip and was replaced on a later camping trip by this one.  It can't really cut anything and is perfect for the potato salad tasks.

As you peel the potatoes, place them in the largest mixing bowl that you have.  While you are peeling, the knife will get very sticky.  It helps to rinse off the knife and your hands in running water a couple times.

Cube the potatoes.  If the cubes are too large, you'll get bites of salad with bland, dressing-less potatoes.  If the cubes are too small, the salad is mushy.  I would err on too small rather than too large.

This is a fast way to cube the potatoes but you need a dull knife or you will cut your hand.  Depending on the size of the potato, first make two or three parallel cuts lengthwise.  Gently press the knife down until it touches your hand then lift straight up.  No sawing motion at all or it increases the likelihood that you'll cut your skin.  Sticky potatoes will try and come up with the knife but hold them in place with your thumb and fingers.  

Then turn the sliced potato 90 degrees so the slices are sideways and make one or two cuts.  The potato is now in long strips.  Some potatoes are dry and will want to fall apart.  Others are sticky and want to stay with the knife.  Just try and hold the potato into its uncut oval shape.

Then make the cross cuts to get the final cubes.  You can let the cubes fall into the bowl as you cut them off in slices.

  
Or just hold them all in your hand.

The cubes will tend to stick together so you have to break them apart a bit.

Cube all the potatoes and spread them out in the very large mixing bowl.  It is not worth the aggravation to try and mix potato salad in a small bowl.  If you don't have a large bowl, do this in a very large cooking pot or roasting pan. 

Sprinkle a thin layer of salt over the cubes

and toss gently with a large spoon to mix in the salt and separate the cubes.

Add some dressing and mix gently with some of the potatoes.  Test the taste of these dressed cubes and adjust the flavor of the dressing if needed.  If the flavor is 'flat', add more salt to the remaining dressing and mix well. If it doesn't look like you'll have enough dressing, at least add a little more mayo and mix well.

Add all the dressing to the potato cubes and mix well.  I usually start with a few 'cuts' by the spoon across the top then fold it together.

Peel the eggs.  Start by make a small crack then roll back and forth on a firm surface while cracking the shell completely around the egg.

At this point you can just squeeze the egg a bit and the shell should come loose easily.  If there are any bits of shell on the egg, just rinse it under running water and pat dry.

Cut the eggs twice in an egg slicer.  I find that this works better if you make the first cut the long way.

  
Then carefully turn the sliced egg to make the second cut.

Often the egg tries to escape as the wires are coming down and need to be gently held in place.

Once the second cut is started, you can hold the egg slicer upside down over the bowl and the egg will drop right into the salad

If you don't have an egg slicer, just chop the eggs into small pieces.  Spread the chopped eggs in an even layer over the potatoes.   Mix well by folding - starting at the edge, scoop up a spoonful and place it over the top in the middle.

Eat.

In the olden days, we used to fancy-up the salad by sprinkling the top with bright red paprika and/or egg slices.