Beautiful summer day. It was Friday and I was just sitting around with my friends with nothing to do. So we decided we will throw a party Saturday night. They went to buy something to drink and I was going to buy some food. I decided I was going to make a potato salad. I don't know why did I decide for potato salad but it was on my mind all day. Potato salad can be very refreshing in summer. So, party it is. What else could you do on Saturday night? We started preparing the food the day before. Maybe you ask your self why day before. One reason is that there wouldn't be enough time on the day of the party and second reason is that you want to put it in the fridge and eat the next day. You will be really in for a treat the next day. My mother always said that potato salad was one of those things that always taste better the next day and she's absolutely right! Potato salad requires boiled potatoes and eggs and that was the first step. If you wanna know how to boil and peel eggs the right way you can read deviled eggs article. I was preparing the potato salad while my friends made several other side dishes. I boiled the potatoes for about 10 minutes or so until they were tender. If you would like to make sure that they are tender just stick them with a  fork or knife. If it goes in easily, they're cooked. Rinse with cold water until they are cold enough so that you can hold them without burning your hands. I started peeling like 10-12 pounds of potatoes that we had cooked. After one hour I had peeled and diced the eggs and potatoes. As I started chopping the eggs. This process was time consuming and it was taking me forever. Now I knew why they didn't want to bother with salad. Lazy bastards. Next thing on the list was dicing celery and onions. A final thing was the dressing. There is so many different potato salads that it would take me a whole page just to write down all kind of potato salads. There are entire cookbooks that are dedicated to different kinds of potato salad. Potatoes mix well with a whole variety of different flavors. There are dozen of different potato salad recipes out there for you to try. Once you discover a basic recipe that will suit you best, just stick with it and modify it a bit if you like, so that it will suit your taste and needs even better. Let me tell you about the potato salad I make. I just told you about main ingredients. Once you have cooked, peeled and chopped the potatoes and eggs you are almost done. You want to add some onions (green, white, red), celery, salt and pepper and some vinegar. The rest is up to you. You can also add some sugar, chili or chili powder, bacon, hot sauce, tomatoes, basil, garlic, mustard, mayo, carrots, green beans, parsley, olives, corn, paprika, coriander, ginger, yogurt, sour cream, honey, lemon juice, orange juice... etc You choose, you decide. Experiment a little bit and make your own special and unique potato salad. Some people like German potato salad. The small difference between my potato salad and German potato salad is that when you are making German potato salad, you have to fry bacon and onion until bacon crisps and onion is tender. Add flour, salt and pepper to bacon drippings. Heat stirring constantly. Gently stir in potatoes, water, and vinegar. German potato salad has to be served warm.
Let's go back to my potato salad. Just as I was finishing up the salad my neighbour came by. His first remark was that there is not enough potato salad and that we will ran out of potato salad. I was convinced that it will be enough but he didn't let it go. So we took a bet. I said I will go and buy some extra potato salad with my own money just for him if there won't be enough of my potato salad. I mixed my potato salad in like five gallon bowl all the way to the top. I tried to convince him that this was enough salad. We also made few other salads and some sandwiches (turkey, ham...). Amazing thing about potato salad is that it is very time consuming and labor intensive and yet a lot of hosts serve it as a side dish. Depends on how you make a potato salad. Some people do not like it with onions or celery some people don't like eggs in it. The dressing is also debatable. You can use mayonnaise or salad dressing. I believe that people in general like any kind of potato salad at parties, events and gatherings. I am amazed every time I try to buy potato salad at the variety of potato salads that are available. You can find potato salad with and without mayonnaise or salad dressing or with eggs and also without .
My potato salad was a big hit at the party and so I have received some complements. Right before party ended I put out the last small bowl of the my special potato salad. I did not have to go buy any potato salad for my neighbour but it was close. It way incredible party and you can't image how much people like potato salad. Even though I made five gallon of salad we almost ran out of it. Potato salad is definitely a party dish. When the party ended I was relieved. Everything went well when I realized that we had a lot of cleaning up to do. Choosing plastic plates for serving a potato salad turned out to be a good idea. It was one chore less to do when cleaning up because we threw those plates in a plastic garbage bag and we were done. The party was a great success and so was potato salad. How do I know? I didn't throw away a single piece of potato salad.
Labels: party potato salad, potato, potato salad, potato salad appetizers, salad |
