Helen's Potato Salad
May. 26th, 2023 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agoodwinsmithSo, this is my Grama's recipe. It is Pennsylvania Dutch. My Mom has branched out and puts more things in it (celery, just no. I like celery in egg salad and tuna salad, but not potato salad), but I stay pretty close to the original, except maybe I like *lots* of mustard and paprika.
Amounts are what you've got - ish.
Body:
potatoes
onion
eggs
Dressing:
mayo
yellow mustard
paprika
celery seed
Garnish:
snipped chives
Okay. So, I start with six hard boiled eggs. Then I cook twice to three times as much potato. This last potato salad was little red potatoes with their skins on (mmmmm). For that much body I used one onion. We used to use a yellow cooking onion diced raw, then I couldn't eat them raw, so I cooked them with the potatoes, but I have now discovered white onions, so we're back to raw and it's definitely better raw.
For that much body, I would use about 3/4 cup mayo (Grama used Miracle Whip; I use Hellman's regular), plus a scant 1/4 cup of yellow (yes, French's) mustard, plus about one tablespoon of sweet Hungarian paprika, plus one luxurious teaspoon of celery seed (must be seed, not salt).
This time I mixed the dressing and added the raw onion dice directly to it to be sure each piece was coated. Then I poured that over the cooled (more or less) potatoes and mixed thoroughly. Then I cut up the cooled hard boiled eggs into bites sized bits and folded them into the body. I decant the whole thing into a clean dish and then sprinkled more paprika on top, plus snipped chives. It is good warm, cold, and one day old. It usually doesn't get older than that. It travels well.
Regarding salt and pepper. Currently I salt the potato water, but I don't add salt to the dressing because Hellman's and French's have enough. I do add a bit of cracked black pepper for the last fold in, but I judge my audience for how much. I like to have salt and pepper on the table for those who need more.
This potato salad makes me happy. ;)
Amounts are what you've got - ish.
Body:
potatoes
onion
eggs
Dressing:
mayo
yellow mustard
paprika
celery seed
Garnish:
snipped chives
Okay. So, I start with six hard boiled eggs. Then I cook twice to three times as much potato. This last potato salad was little red potatoes with their skins on (mmmmm). For that much body I used one onion. We used to use a yellow cooking onion diced raw, then I couldn't eat them raw, so I cooked them with the potatoes, but I have now discovered white onions, so we're back to raw and it's definitely better raw.
For that much body, I would use about 3/4 cup mayo (Grama used Miracle Whip; I use Hellman's regular), plus a scant 1/4 cup of yellow (yes, French's) mustard, plus about one tablespoon of sweet Hungarian paprika, plus one luxurious teaspoon of celery seed (must be seed, not salt).
This time I mixed the dressing and added the raw onion dice directly to it to be sure each piece was coated. Then I poured that over the cooled (more or less) potatoes and mixed thoroughly. Then I cut up the cooled hard boiled eggs into bites sized bits and folded them into the body. I decant the whole thing into a clean dish and then sprinkled more paprika on top, plus snipped chives. It is good warm, cold, and one day old. It usually doesn't get older than that. It travels well.
Regarding salt and pepper. Currently I salt the potato water, but I don't add salt to the dressing because Hellman's and French's have enough. I do add a bit of cracked black pepper for the last fold in, but I judge my audience for how much. I like to have salt and pepper on the table for those who need more.
This potato salad makes me happy. ;)
