German Potato Salad

I have been searching for a store/deli/etc. to buy good prepared german potato salad. The old standbys in Lincoln Square have closed. I know that Gepperth's on Halsted sells german potato salad, but I'm wondering if anyone has any other suggestions based on previous experiences. Any help would be appreciated.

Jeff

Paulina Market makes a fine version of German Potato Salad. In fact, all of their house made salads are really good, but, this being Paulina, they're not cheap.

Jeff, do you cook at all? I know you asked for a place to buy it...but since it's not easy to find, I've turned to making my own. It's not hard, but harder than buying it, lol.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I do cook quite a bit, and if you happen to have a good recipe, I would love to try it sometime.

German potato salad was one of the first things I learned to cook, back in college. It's really easy and if you want to speed up the time, you can even use drained, canned potatoes.

All you need are:

Potatoes
Onion
Bacon
Sugar
Cider vinegar
Salt and pepper

Anyway, boil the potatoes, as many you like. I usually use redskin potatoes and don't bother to peel them. If you use Idaho potatoes, peel them first.

When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, slice thickly or cut in bite-sized chunks. Slice or dice 1 onion for every five or six potatoes, or more if you like it, and add it to the spuds. It's not authentic, but you can add some diced bell pepper, too.

Make hot bacon dressing: Dice 4 to 6 slices of bacon. Fry till just crisp and remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Measure the bacon grease and add equal amounts of granulated sugar and cider vinegar and stir over heat until the sugar's all dissolved. (Be careful when adding the vinegar to the hot fat! It will spatter. Also, keep your eyes well out of the way of the steam.)

Pour over the potatoes and onions and add salt and pepper to taste plus the bacon bits. Toss well and serve warm or at room temperature.

You can also use the hot bacon dressing for spinach salad.

LAZ,

When I make my (famous) classic potato salad, I burn my fingers insuring that the potato slices are still steamingly hot when I add them to the mayo dressing. That makes a huge difference in the amount of sauce absorbed by the potatoes.

Do you think that this hot potato-hot potato routine might be useful in making your German potato salad? I've never made a German version, so I know little about the process.

Just thinking out loud here...

Geo

Geo wrote:When I make my (famous) classic potato salad, I burn my fingers insuring that the potato slices are still steamingly hot when I add them to the mayo dressing. That makes a huge difference in the amount of sauce absorbed by the potatoes.

Do you think that this hot potato-hot potato routine might be useful in making your German potato salad?

Since the dressing is hot when you pour it on, you shouldn't have to burn your fingers on the spuds. I usually drain the potatoes and let them cool while I cut up the onion and start frying the bacon. (BTW, if you aren't fussy about aesthetics, it's a bit faster to cook the bacon in slices and crumble it once it's cooked.)

I have done this even with room-temperature canned potatoes and the results are decent. It wouldn't be a good idea to use potatoes cold enough to congeal the bacon fat.

For similar reasons, if you refrigerate the leftovers, you want to warm them up a bit before serving. I typically put it in the microwave for a minute or so. (If you're making a small quantity, you can do the whole thing in the microwave. Nuke the potatoes, covered, so they steam a bit. Then cook the bacon in a Pyrex measuring cup.)

This post prompted a flashback to the german potato salad of my youth:

http://www.shopfoodex.com/read-german-p ... -1481.html

It seems easy to prepare the real non canned version, and I know my mom hated to cook, but I think the real reason this item appeared on out table was my dad's fondness for it. I can almost taste the slimy potatoes and soggy bacon. Yum-o.

Oh man, emdub! Does that take me back, or what? Remember this ??!

Geo

Here's my grandmother's recipe for German Potato Salad. She was a Schaller of Swedish descent married into a food loving German family named Rudolph

German Potato Salad

10 pounds new potatoes
1 pound bacon
3 cups scallions or spring onions
2 cups cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon water
½ cup canola oil
1 cup parsley

Finely chop bacon. Cook until crisp.

Cover the potatoes with water and bring to a boil. Boil until tender approximately 10 minutes. Drain potatoes and let cool. Peel and slice.

Slice scallions and thinly as possible and add to sliced potatoes

Heat vinegar, sugar and water in a small pot until boiling and pour over the potatoes.

Toss the mixture from bowl to bowl about 4 times.

Add oil and toss to mix. Add bacon and toss to mix. Add parsley just prior to serving.

MAG wrote:2 cups cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

Is that the correct amount of sugar? It seems like it would be unusually tart for German potato salad.

I take it you discard the bacon fat in favor of canola oil?

That's always been the way we prepared it. I never like anything particularly sweet, that's probably been an inherited trait. It's not tart at all, just vinegary.

I put my bacon fat into the container in the fridge and use the canola - lighter flavor.

My Gram's potato salad isn't like other German Potato salads I've encountered. Yet it comes straight from her childhood in Schlesian (which is Poland now, but was Germany then) and early married life in Bremen...

Grandma Kalweit's Potato Salad

Ingredients:
red potatoes
bacon
onion
dill pickle
yellow apple
Krazy salt
red wine vinegar
mayonnaise


Directions:I don’t have exact measurements for this one. Grandma just makes it to taste, and so do I. The apples are optional. Some of the family leave them out; I love them and always include 'em.

Boil potatoes whole, with skin on. While they are boiling, chop bacon and fry in pan. Chop onion, dill pickle, and apple. When potatoes are done, peel and cube. Combine potatoes, bacon (and fat), onion, dill pickle, and apple. Add Krazy salt, red wine vinegar, and mayonnaise to taste.

MAG wrote:That's always been the way we prepared it. I never like anything particularly sweet, that's probably been an inherited trait. It's not tart at all, just vinegary.

OK. I just wondered if was a typo.

The recipe I posted above, which uses equal parts sugar, vinegar and bacon fat, I learned from a long-ago boyfriend and his mom, who were my principal mentors when I was first seriously learning to cook. She was a Jung, related to the famous psychologist, so for all I know the recipe is Swiss. Then again, he was a sometime short-order cook, and may well have picked it up in the course of some job or other.

bluroses wrote:I don’t have exact measurements for this one. Grandma just makes it to taste, and so do I.

Sounds like a really interesting recipe, bluroses! Can you give approximate proportions, i.e. about how many apples and onions to potatoes, and how much vinegar to mayo?

I can try to write down exactly what I use next time I make it, but I can't really tell you otherwise. I just chop until it looks right! I plop some mayo in the bowl, shake in a little vinegar, stir it up, taste it, and decide if it's right ot not. The amount of apple is probably just a smidge less than of onion (or course, I love onion)...

I'm going to a family party today. I'll see if any of my aunts have written it down in a more followable fashion. (I lived with my gram for years and tend to make here recipes by feel from watching her do it so often. Thank God we have measurements for her baking recipes!)

Since I originally posted this, I have made german potato salad twice. I based my recipe on combining what I considered the best parts of different recipes (or what tasted best to me) and I think I have something that matches what I'm looking for.

Approx. 3 lbs. white potatoes (about 12 small to medium-sized potatoes)
1/2 lb. good bacon (Paulina Market thick-cut was an excellent splurge)
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 cup of cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
3 Tblsp. sugar
1/4 cup of good stone ground mustard

1) Boil potatoes for about 20 minutes (I go a little longer, as I find the potatoes absorb the dressing better)
2) Fry bacon until crispy. Remove bacon from pan, but reserve fat.
3) Cook diced onion in the bacon fat until it is tender.
4) Pour off all but about 3 Tblsp. of the bacon fat.
5) Add vinegar, water, sugar and mustard to pan and simmer for a couple of minutes.
6) Slice warm potatoes into half-moon slices
7) Combine potatoes, crumbled bacon and dressing in a large bowl and mix gently.

I've done this recipe twice and it has all of the flavor I associate with German Potato Salad when I have that craving.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

Jeff

Any updates where to buy?

Wally Wade

Gene's. Paulina Market, sometimes.