Potato Salad, Heavy on the Pickles
(from JenniferGM’s recipe box)
This is a family recipe I got from Ingrid, who got it from her mom, who got it from Ernie’s mom, who got it from who knows where. I don’t have exact measurements of any of the ingredients because no one has ever written it down like this. The best advice I can give is that this potato salad is heavy on pickle flavor to give it a tartness which makes it so good. Because it is so good, you’ll never really want to make a small batch of it, so I’m going to approximate the ingredients based on a medium sized batch.
Source: Glenn and Ingrid Gregory
Prep time: 60 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Categories: Salads
Ingredients
- 10 medium-sized Russet potatoes
- 4 bunches of green onions (only use the white tips)
- 6 Vlasic kosher dill pickles (or roughly half of a large jar)
- 6 or 7 hard boiled eggs
- Mayonnaise
- Mustard
- Lawry’s seasoned salt
- Pickle juice
- Lots of time and patience!
- Optional: chopped jalapeños
Directions
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Wash the potatoes and boil them whole and unpeeled. They will need to boil for a while, until they are quite soft. A skewer fork should pass through with minimal resistance. You want the potatoes to be mushy enough to lose some of their mass when you are mixing the ingredients, but not too mushy that they completely disintegrate. If they aren’t soft enough, the potatoes won’t absorb enough of the flavors of the other ingredients. If too soft, you’ll end up with mashed potato salad.
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Boil the eggs (I wait until the water boils, then boil for 5 minutes, turn off the heat and let sit for 10 minutes or more)
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Chop the pickles into small pieces. Depending on the size of the pickle, each quarter of the pickle should be cut down into at least 2 or 3 parts before you chop it up. Or you could use a food processor if you are lucky enough to have one. You don’t want them to be like relish, but you don’t want them to be too large or too thick (unless you decide you prefer it that way).
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Chop the green onion tips (just the white parts. Anything above that gets too chewy.).
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The eggs should be done well before the potatoes, so cool them off, peel them and chop them up. I’ve found that an egg slicer works well for this. Slice them one way, then rotate the egg 90 degrees and slice again. Set the eggs in the fridge until you are ready to mix the ingredients.