Southern potato salad

I've been on a Southern food kick lately, mostly because this is the time of year when things like potato salad and BBQ pulled chicken (coming soon!) are eaten with great joy. It's the start of the barbecue and summer potluck season. I, for one, couldn't be happier.

This version of potato salad uses bread and butter (sweet) pickles and pickle juice. I'm not a sweet pickle fan normally, but they just work in this recipe. It's different from the way my mom and grandma used to make potato salad. They preferred to use a little dill relish, but I like this way better. Something about the combination of pickle juice (I know! I know! Awful, right?) and mayonnaise and mustard and egg yolks just really makes this the best potato salad I've ever eaten.

These plus eggs and potatoes will yield you some damn fine potato salad.

I found the recipe on Epicurious.com, a site I relied on almost exclusively before I jumped into the wide world of food blogging. I modified it a little, but it's pretty hard to improve upon it. Potato salad isn't fancy and anyone that tries to class it up for you is really trying too hard. I've had whole grain mustard-based potato salads, potato salads with beans (just...why?), and potato salads that feature other vegetables more than the potato itself. Fine, they were delicious, but they were not my idea of potato salad. Even the sprinkling of parsley I put in this salad makes me think I'm being a little pretentious. 

I started out by hard-boiling six eggs. To hardboil eggs, I put them in a pot, cover them with water, and boil them for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I turn off the heat, let the eggs sit for about 5-10 minutes, and then rinse them with cold water so that I can begin peeling them.   

While boiling the eggs, I set about peeling and dicing about three pounds of yellow potatoes.

I poured in just enough water to cover them and then set them to boiling on the stove on high heat. While they cooked, I mixed up the sauce and chopped up half an onion, the pickles, and the parsley. When the potatoes were done, about 15-20 minutes later, I drained the potatoes and put them back in the pot they'd boiled in. While they cooled slightly, I peeled the eggs. I took the yolks and smashed them with my hands, dropping them into the still-warm potatoes and stirring them around. I smashed some of the potatoes on the side of the pan too. It makes the salad creamy. 

After that, I threw in the onion, parsley, pickles, half of the egg whites, and most of the sauce (about 3/4 of it). I mixed it around and added more of the sauce to my own taste.

There you have it! Eggy potato salad. Eat up, y'all!

Southern Potato Salad

(serves 8-10 people as a side)

lightly adapted from Epicurious

Ingredients

3 pounds of diced, cooked potatoes

6 hardboiled eggs (6 yolks and 2-3 diced whites)

1/3-1/2 cup finely chopped onion

2 tbsp finely chopped Italian parsley (optional, really)

10-12 chopped beard and butter (sweet) pickles*

In a bowl, stir together:

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1/3 pickle juice from the jar

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp paprika

1-2 tsp salt

Stir warm potatoes with egg yolks, smashing some of the potatoes against the side of the bowl. Add onion, parsley, pickles, a couple of the egg whites, and the mayonnaise mixture. When thoroughly incorporated, you can serve it at room temperature or chill it for a few hours in the fridge, where it will firm up a bit. 

*My dad has to avoid sugar because of his diabetes, so, for his sake, I switch to dill pickles when I make this salad for him. It's still pretty great.