You know it's the dog days of summer when there's not a single story to be told. Even CNN is running a Dr. Gupta marathon....In related news, today CG1 is having her gallbladder probed, poked and scanned - film at 11.
While we wait for the results, here is my latest attempt at mayonnaise-free potato salad.
My grandpa - who was English, if that's relevant - used to make the BEST potato salad. Of course there was no recipe so my mother and I have been trying, for 40 and 20 years respectively, to duplicate his formula.
While I was in Chicago the other week, Mother told me she'd been slaving in the laboratory and just about had it worked out.
The problem for me, of course, is that Grandad's salad is loaded with mayonnaise, a/k/a Hubster Kryptonite.
So for the rest of you long-suffering cooks with mayo-phobic husbands and children, give this a try. It's pretty darn tasty.
Almost Grandpa's Potato Salad
3 large, peeled Baking Potatoes, cut into 1"x1" cubes
6 hard boiled Eggs, cut into eighths
1 medium Onion, finely chopped
3 stalks Celery, finely chopped
1/2 cup Salad Oil (flavorless)
1/4 cup White Vinegar
2 tablespoons Mustard (yellow)
1 tsp Celery Salt
Kosher salt
Cook potato chunks in salted water, approximately 7 minutes. Drain and cool to the point they can be handled.
Combine in a medium bowl, potatoes, eggs, onion and celery. Toss.
Combine in a mason jar, oil, vinegar, mustard, celery salt and a pinch of kosher salt. Shake.
Pour vinaigrette over potato mixture.
Refrigerate. Consume.
Notes:
1. Warm potatoes absorb vinegar-based dressings extremely well. Pouring dressing over cold potatoes...doesn't do anything for them.
2. Grandpa's salad was nearly equal parts potato and egg. That's what made it so good!
Post Script: I couldn't find an image of po'sal that looked like mine, so I've taken the liberty of inserting the image of a handsome Brit, in Grandpa's honor. Fifty points to Gryffindor if you can name the actor.
Comments
Your potatoe salad sounds fabulous!
LOVED him in the original Pygmalion, Berkeley Square and The Petrified Forest (with Humphrey Bogart). Also lovely in The 49th Parallel and It's Love I'm After.
God bless Turner Classic Movies. :o)
PS - Clark Gable give me the creeps. I concede your point on Laurence Olivier...but only in 49th Parallel. WHAT a great movie.
I learned from my mom to make potato salad with the marinade those little gherkins swim in, in place of vinegar.
The handsome Brit is much nicer to look at than a pic of potato salad! But I have to admit that while I like almost all kinds of potato salads, I am more on the side of the mayo-loaded type (Best Foods or Hellmann's or homemade, please).