Bo's Midsummer Night's Potato Salad

Once again Boreegard has provided us with an excellent recipe. Here is is what Bo had to say on the proper handling of spuds.

Prologue: Jeanne (Bo's wife, aka She Who Must Be Obeyed), having bought some potato salad at one of our local super duper grocery stores last week, suggested that I should buy some more of it as a complement to tonight's beefsteak and fresh local corn, rather than make my own, considering the terrible muggy heat we've been suffering from this past week. When the Scotsman in me saw the ridiculous high price being charged for this sorry pap, he rebelled, and set about to make his own intimate potato salad (if a potato salad in bulk weighs two pounds or less, I think of it as intimate). As Harry Truman said: heat be damned, especially en la cocina.

Here's how you might make a similar one.

INGREDIENTS

o two pounds fresh bliss potatoes (any potato will do, but bliss redskins have the proper starch density, and do not need to be skinned—the skin becomes a defining and vitamin- laden part of the salad).
o ½ a large sweet onion, chopped (in this case it was a Georgia Vidalia).
o 2 stalks of celery, finely chopped.
o fresh parsley, lettuce, endive, or other greens of similar ilk, chopped finely.
o ½ tsp salt.
o fresh ground pepper
o 1 heaping tbsp. Hellman's light Mayo

LE DRESSING

o 1/8 cup vinegar (in this case apple vinegar)
o 3/8 cup olive oil
o 1 tsp strong mustard
o 1 clove fresh garlic—crushed
o 1 tsp. soy sauce
o several healthy dashes of Louisiana hot sauce

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO WITH ALL THIS
o bring potatoes to boil in a pot, with enough water to cover them. Turn down heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes (to the time that they're just barely done—a fork should just be able to penetrate about 1/6 of an inch).
o in the meantime, chop the veggys required and put aside.
o make the dressing and put in a heat resistant container (pyrex). Put on stove burner at low heat, mixing once and awhile. You want it to be warm.
o when potatoes are done, drain and slice, steaming hot, into ½ inch or so pieces. Place in big bowl and pour warm dressing over. Let sit, and stir from time to time for about a half hour, so that all is joined in a perfection of warm contiguous soak.
o throw whatever's left from above into it and stir gently. Then chill (or not—according to your taste).


THE SECRET

The secret to good potato salad is not much of a secret at all, but it seems so often to be ignored. You must join the warm dressing with the steaming hot cuts of potatoes in that big bowl, and for at least a half hour turn the whole mess with a big spoon from time to time, so as to insure that all the good stuff is soaked into the potatoes. Once you have achieved that, add all the rest of the stuff, mix it slowly with said big spoon, and let sit for at least another hour in the refrigerator, so that the various ingredients might blend properly. Forgive me if I repeat myself.

THE JULIA TEST

In the busy afternoon of this day, mixed with weeding old garden beds, making iced tea, and chasing quick little toddling grandchildren between the raindrops, I set about putting this recipe together in the hot kitchen, as Jeanne ran herd on the little possums [Griffin and Julia]. All ingredients had been assembled in the big bowl, and been stirred the required time, and just needed the final dollop of mayo. I went out to fill the front yard birdfeeder, which an amazing collection of birds had descended upon, and returned to find Grandma Jeanne feeding bits of Bo's tater salad by hand into the maw, the very appreciative maw, of my granddaughter—Julia. "Mo, mo (more, more)," that delightful little gourmand insisted. Very soon we were all enjoying bitsels of it. Yum!

I'm surprised there was any left for dinner.

Boreegard (aka Mike O'Neil)