Foodie Friday — Southern Potato Salad

For today's Foodie Friday post, I thought I would share my version of a recipe that just about everyone has, especially if your a Southerner. Yes folks, it's Potato Salad! We eat it all year, but when the summer heat rolls around, as it has now, there is always a bowl in the fridge.

I start with simple ingredients:


On this day I started with the last six potatoes we had left in the pantry. I use one egg for each medium sized spud and add another one for each six potatoes to use for garnish. My technique for boiling is simple, I cover the eggs with cold water, cover the saucepan, bring just to a rolling boil, remove from heat and let sit for about ten minutes. Be sure to peel them while they're still warm, so the shells won't stick.

I should note here, for those who don't know, that for potato salad you need to use a low-starch potato. Why? Because they hold up to boiling and won't fall apart. For everyday potato salad, I use good old white potatoes. When it's a special occasion, I use fingerlings, I love them, but they don't fit my budget for everyday. I have other potato salad recipes in which I use red potatoes, but today we're making just plain old Southern-style.

Onward and upward. While my eggs are boiling I peel my potatoes and cut them into bite-size pieces. Now, this is where it gets tricky and getting it right takes practice. I boil my potatoes until they're just past that "firm" stage, but not too soft. This is a personal taste and everyone will tell you different. When I mix my salad I want the smaller pieces to "mash" and the larger ones to stay whole, but be soft to the bite. My cousin Doris likes her almost completely mashed and I dislike intensely deli-style where the potatoes are hard. It's all a matter of personal preference.

Okay, we have our potatoes and eggs boiled and we're ready to go. But wait, we need to chopped the eggs. I like my eggs cut chunky. I put them through one of those little egg slicer thingys and then quarter them.

Now, when I was growing up our potato salad was always made with Miracle Whip, French's Yellow Mustard and diced sweet pickles. As you can see I use non-fat mayo (my use of mayonnaise caused many arguments with my daddy when I switched), spicy brown mustard and Wickle's pickle relish. If I'm out of Wickle's, I resort to chopping sweet pickles. I don't care for other brands of relish.

Measurements for these condiments is again, personal preference. I use about a tablespoon (not the measuring kind, the table kind) of mayonnaise, a small teaspoon of mustard and a teaspoon of pickles for each potato. These measurements produce a nice, creamy potato salad. Season to taste with salt and pepper and voilá, it's ready. One more thing I should mention, and something my non-Southern friends can never understand, is that I serve my potato salad warm. Yep, that's how we do it in the South. Even when I eat the leftovers, I pop them in the microwave long enough to take off the chill.

So, here is the result. You can see I garnished my potato salad with sliced egg and a sprinkling of paprika.


The finishing touch at the Tiki Hut is to add the tiki salt and pepper shakers.


While we're in my kitchen I thought I would introduce you to Fannie, my kitchen flamingo. She is my cooking companion and always brings a smile to my face. Isn't she just too cute?


That's it for today's Foodie Friday, now git on over to Designs By Gollum for more of today's postings.