With every gumbo I make comes the obligatory potato salad. Some people eat it on the side. Some people spoon it right into the gumbo. This particular recipe/technique comes from my Aunt Goldie. I say “recipe/technique” because just saying “recipe” implies that there are measurements and precision. Ain’t nothin’ precise about Aunt Goldie’s potato salad.
A note about the potatoes: use only red potatoes–the freshest you can find (and that’s usually at Joyce’s in St. Martinville.) Russet potatoes are too mushy and are more suited for baked potatoes. Red potatoes are sturdy and hold their shape and when they’re chunked after boiling. You can use the peeling or not–everybody’s got their own taste. This post will refer to a “5-pound” potato salad meaning I use five pounds of red potatoes. Use a dozen eggs for every five pounds of potatoes you get. And don’t be stingy–get those big ol’ jumbo eggs. While I know fresh yard eggs are delicious—we used to have chickens so I know–they are a bitch to peel after they’re hard boiled since not enough time has passed to allow an air pocket to form inside the shell. If you buy the eggs at the local grocery store, you should be good to go. If you have only fresh eggs, you lucky bastard, then you should probably wait about a week or so to use them for potato salad, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Peel the potatoes, if so desired, and try to cut them all to the same size. The easy way to do this is to just pile all the raw potatoes in a pot and pick the smallest one, then cut the rest to that size so that they all cook at the same rate. Boil the whole dozen eggs in a separate pot. Be sure and salt the water you boil the potatoes in, otherwise the potato salad will be bland (even after adding seasoning.) There’s a reason why high blood pressure is prevalent down here–we are saltaholics. Now, I’m not going to tell you to boil the potatoes for X amount of minutes. Just keep checking them every so often and when you can easily pass a fork all the way through a large piece, then you should be good.
Drain the potatoes and place in a bowl–preferably something non-metallic. Aluminum and the starch in the potatoes don’t play well together. Using a steak knife, chunk the potatoes to the consistency desired. If you prefer a mushy potato salad, ain’t no judgin’ going on here–just mash them, ya heathen! Peel the eggs (do I really have to say that? Yes. Yes I do.) Add them to the potatoes and cut them up with the steak knife as well. Why a steak knife? Because prep knives are liable to slice into the plastic of your bowl. Steak knives have just enough of an edge without ending up with shards of plastic in your potato salad.
Next (and this is VERY important) let the potato/egg mixture cool off a bit. If you start mixing mayonnaise with hot potatoes and eggs, the mayo will separate and it will make the potato salad greasy, and ain’t nothing worse than greasy potato salad. Well, there is, but we won’t get into that. Another note: use only Blue Plate mayo. If you simply MUST use that Yankee Kraft shit, then go ahead, but there’s something about Blue Plate’s taste. Hellmann’s is a close second but I find it separates too easily. Besides, Blue Plate is a Reily Foods product–a company based out of New Orleans. If you can’t support local Louisiana companies, what the hell are you doing reading my blog? Mix in as much mayo as you want to the consistency you want.
Now for the seasoning. Garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne pepper to taste. That’s it. No pickles. No olives. Don’t you dare….put that damn vinegar back in the cabinet–that’s a travesty. And this goes without saying…..for the love of God please don’t leave the potato salad out too long. Unless you’re feeding a sample to your husband to judge the amount of seasoning, put the damn bowl in the fridge. And cover it tightly. Nobody likes dried-out crusty potato salad. Or maybe there’s a freak or two out there who does, but none of them live in this house.