Of This Potato Salad, I Am Certain
I made one of my mom’s recipes and recently shared it with you, and it’s already time for another:potato salad. This one, however, is an instance where I have surpassed her, and she refuses to admit it. I give her credit for the composition, but there is one area where she goes wrong—her choice in mayonnaise. Helman’s, Shelman’s. It’s all about the Blue Plate Mayonnaise. Perhaps you shake your head because you’ve never heard of it. Poor you. It’s only available in the southeast, though you can order it to be shipped, as my friend Sara did for me last year as a wonderful surprise.
Now, on to the recipe for my mama’s potato salad.
8-10 peeled medium-ish potatoes, cut into chunks
2 large eggs
3-4 green onions, sliced
4-5 spoonfuls of green olives, chopped
2 T yellow mustard
4 T Blue Plate mayonnaise
salt/pepper
Begin by boiling potatoes and eggs in a large pot for approximately 18 minutes, or until tender. Meanwhile, assemble other ingredients into a large bowl. When potatoes are done, drain and leave in pot to help evaporate extra moisture, while you peel the eggs and dice into bowl. Add potatoes and some of the olive juice to help mixing easier (and for an extra boost of flavor). Add salt and freshly cracked pepper and continue stirring.
I like my potato salad very smooth, almost like mashed potatoes and usually end up tasting and adding a little more of everything: salt, pepper, onions, olives, and condiments, just a bit. This was the way I always had it growing up and would seem weird to me when people left theirs in chunks. I actually couldn’t eat other versions of this side dish back then and to this day cannot eat the kind you find in plastic tubs in the deli section. Though I’ve made it other ways, now that I’m a cook and all, it’s still my favorite. And it had co-workers scraping the bowl when I got up the other morning to make it for a BBQ.
potato salad, Blue Plate Mayonnaise


January 29th, 2008 at 11:26 am
[...] Over the past few days, Ray and I had some quality chats about potato salad (find my recipe here), boiled peanuts (on which we don’t agree), and the lack of real BBQ here in California. And [...]