Potato Salad, Two Ways

Potato salad has been the quintessential summertime food to me for as long as I can remember. The highlight of any picnic as a child was cold fried chicken accompanied by my mom’s creamy potato salad.

So when the most recent heatwave turned our otherwise lovely apartment into an oven, I cracked open my 5 lb bag of red potatoes and got boiling.

After chopping about 3 lbs of the potatoes into bite-sized chunks, I tossed them into salted boiling water. I let them boil about 10 minutes until the average size pieces were cooked through (tested by spooning one out, cooling it with water, and tasting it.) At this point I tossed in some French green beans that I snapped in half and cooked for another 2 minutes.

After pouring the potatoes and green beans out into a footed colander and letting cool about 5 minutes, I split them into two bowls with roughly the same potato to green bean ratio.

In the first bowl, I added three heaping serving spoons of sour cream, 1/4 of a large red onion roughly chopped, and a teaspoon of grainy mustard, plus salt and pepper then stirred til combined. We used this as a side for our fried chicken.

In the other bowl, which had about a potato more in it, I added three heaping serving spoons of mayo, 1/4 of a large red onion roughly chopped, 1/2 cup of solid salami chopped into small chunks, 2 cups of shredded cabbage, a teaspoon of grainy mustard, a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar plus salt and pepper then stirred til combined. I took this salad for lunch, and had small portions as an after work snack all week.

Sorry for the lack of photos on this, but potato salad is one of those foods that looks so wrong, but tastes so good.