Sunday, September 11, 2011

Grandma's Potato Salad

Nantucket
Continuing on with our week in beautiful Nantucket, there is a standby, easy to prepare side dish whose presence is required during every celebration: Grandma's Potato Salad.
Start with about seven to eight medium-sized Yukon Gold potatoes. As our location on the island was conveniently close to the famous Barlett Farms, we spun by there earlier in the day to grab some of their farm grown potatoes. Peel and cube the potatoes into bite-sized pieces. When prepared, go ahead and throw them into a large pot of boiling, lightly-salted water. When the potatoes are tender, drain the water.
Your main ingredients
While your potatoes are boiling, this makes for an opportune time to prepare your sauce in a large enough bowl to toss the entire dish. You'll need 3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped. Throw those into the bowl. You'll also need to chop up about 1/4 cup of dill pickles - the really cheap kind will do just fine. Those go into the bowl. Here's the real secret: add about 1/3 of a cup of the pickle juice from the jar of pickles, and that too can now join the party. Now you'll need 1/2 cup of mayonnaise, a teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of celery seeds (these seeds have a rightful place in every person's pantry just in order to prepare this potato salad, in my humble opinion), 1/8 teaspoon of garlic salt, and 1/8 of a teaspoon of pepper. With all the ingredients in the bowl, give it a good whisk to combine. 
With the potatoes drained and ready for launch, you can throw those into the large bowl with your sauce, and give everything a thorough toss. Allow the potato salad to cool on the counter, and then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place into the fridge.
Grandma's Potato Salad
This potato salad is best prepared a day in advance so that all of the flavors of the sauce can really melt into all of the potato cubes. I've yet to meet a person who hasn't enjoyed this potato salad, which is classic, and simple, but has that extra little zing from our secret ingredient of pickle juice (no longer just for pregnant ladies). I hope that you'll be able to give the recipe a whirl during your next summer cook out, and you better hurry, because we don't have a hell of a lot of summer days to enjoy such outings until next year. 


INGREDIENT RUNDOWN:
8 medium-sized Yukon Gold potatoes
3 hard-boiled eggs
1/4 cup chopped dill pickles
1/3 cup of pickle juice
1/2 cup of mayonnaise (never ever use Miracle Whip - so gross)
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of celery seeds
1/8 teaspoon of garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon of pepper

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