June 2, 2015

Potato Salad

Based on the burning hot sun, the rowdy bands of seemingly parentless children, and the sweating
Dumb potatoes don't even know I'm gonna salad them
pedestrians everywhere, Summer is here. Then again, I live in LA, so I could just as easily be describing December. The point is that Summer is all about grilling and inviting friends over. Which is awesome, don't get me wrong. But chances are you'll go crazy trying to make sure that your grilled meat is perfect, but will completely neglect your side dishes. You know, the things that your guests will be anxiously eating while they wait 45 minutes for you to finish fussing over the charcoal and actually cook their damn food? The truth is, a good Potato Salad is the backbone of any great barbecue. Well, that, and actually owning a grill. Also beer.

Ingredients:

3 lb Red Potatoes
4 large Eggs
1 cup Mayonnaise
1/2  a Red Onion (If you don't have a Red Onion, you can totally replace this with any other onion. If you want the recipe to come out slightly wrong. Or you can go to literally any grocery store, and buy a Red Onion)
2 whole Kosher Dill Pickles (Or 4 halves. Or 8 spears. Isn't math fun?)
2 TBSP Dijon Mustard
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
An unspecified amount of Smoked Paprika

The first thing you're gonna need to do, is forget everything you know about cooking potatoes. Since multiple people have told me that while they enjoy reading my blog, they don't actually cook themselves, this may be relatively easy for you. Take a large pot of water, and bring it to a boil. While you're waiting the roughly 3.7 hours for water to actually boil, you're gonna chop your potatoes into 1-inch cubes. Don't break out a protractor, just do your best. 

Dramatization: Potatoes playing it cool. Real cool.
Drop your potatoes in the boiling water, and cook them about 10-15 minutes, until they're tender enough to let you stab them with a fork all the way to their potatoey hearts without resistance. Then turn the fire off, drain the potatoes, and cover them with cold water until they cool down to room temperature. Why? Because turning off the fire doesn't completely stop the cooking process. There's still a bunch of heat in there. And if your potatoes are perfectly done, but then they cook more, you end up with overcooked nonsense. So pour the water on them to help your potatoes play it cool. 

While you wait for your potatoes to cook, and then for them to cool down, take another pot, and fill it with water and with eggs. Hard boil them there eggs, and set them aside. Also take this time to dice your Red Onion and Kosher Pickles (Note to bigots: A pickle being "kosher" is indicative of it having been brined with lots of garlic and dill. It isn't another rung in some conspiracy that the monsters living under your bed told you about. Unless that conspiracy was about garlic and dill.), and to whisk together your Mayo, Salt, Garlic Powder, and Mustard. Isn't it fun being efficient with our time? This way we finish like 5 minutes earlier, and also have the added bonus of making everything a lot more stressful! Frederick Taylor would be proud. The rest of this process is pretty simple. Once your potatoes are cooled,
Damn. That almost looks good enough to make me foget
about the grilling meat part. Almost.
remove the shell from your eggs, slice them, and dump them in, along with your Mayo concoction, your Onion, and your Pickles. Stir to combine, and then shove that baby in the fridge for no less than 2 hours. Top it with a sprinkling of Smoked Paprika, and serve it to your friends, to make up for what you did to their burgers.

5 comments:

  1. That was perfect, thanks for posting it :)

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    1. Thanks! I was a little worried I'd gone over the top with that West Side Story thing. Then I remembered that over the top is what I do.

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  2. Toby's Kiwi pen pal writing here. That is a scrumptious recipe. Thank you, I am going out forthwith to buy red potatoes. As it is winter here, I don't think I will be grilling meat outside any time soon, but I can see myself eating this salad curled up next to the woodburner and eating myself pink!

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    1. That sounds like an awesome way to eat some potato salad. Let me know how it comes out!

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  3. I really love this post salad recipe. I suggest others to ry this recipe as well. Here i have a classic potato salad recipe. Check out the recipe here: https://www.recipespack.com/classic-potato-salad-simplyrecipes-com/

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