Mom's Potato Salad

I have always loved my mother's potato salad. It was just perfect. There was not too much mayonnaise, so it was never gloopy, and you could taste the earthiness of the potatoes instead of just tasting mayonnaise.



She always used Miracle Whip, which is a bit sweeter than regular mayo . . . I can't get that over here, but I make do with what I can get and adapt it a little bit to make up for the lack of Miracle Whip.



Mom always used cold leftover potatoes, or cold potatoes that she had boiled specifically for making potato salad with. I can still see her standing at the counter cutting everything into small cubes and I remember feeling very hungry as I watched her . . . probably because we knew we were in for a real treat!



She would serve it in the summer time with some cold meat, or a tin of cold salmon, divided amongst the five of us. She was always thrifty . . . but I didn't really mind. I wasn't bothered about the salmon. I just wanted that delicious potato salad.



Potato Salad
Serves 6
Printable Recipe

This is my favourite way to make a mayonnaise based potato salad. It is perfect in my opinion, with just enough mayo and lots of flavour. The flavour of the potato really shines through.

8 medium sized new potatoes, unpeeled
the juice of one small lemon
1/4 cup of vegetable oil (2 fluid ounces)
rine sea salt to taste
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 stalks of celery, washed, trimmed and chopped
1/2 cup of cubed cucumber (peel, remove the seeds and chop
into 1/2 inch dice)
4 hard boiled eggs, chopped into 1/2 inch dice
2 TBS finely chopped onion
1 to 1 1/4 cups of mayonnaise
3 TBS cider vinegar
1 tsp sugar

To garnish:
finely chopped fresh chives
ground paprika

Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water, until tender just to the fork. Drain well and as soon as you can handle them, peel and cut them into 1/2 inch dice. Toss in a bowl along with the lemon juice, chopped onions, oil and salt to taste. This preliminary dressing while very warm gives the potatoes extra flavour and coats them. This prevents them from absorbing too much mayonnaise later on. Allow to cool.

Add the black pepper, celery, chopped eggs and cucumber. Blend 1 cup of the mayonnaise with the vinegar and the sugar. Pour this over the potato salad, gently folding until all pieces are coated. Add the remaining mayonnaise only if the salad seems dry. Taste and adjust the seasoning as required. Spoon into a clean bowl and chill, covered.

Just before serving, sprinkle with some chopped fresh chives and ground paprika. Delicious!!

TIL NEXT TIME!!