My grandma made awesome potato salad. It ruined any store-bought potato salad for me...I just can't eat it. It was always the most lovely yellow color, and it always tasted just right, and she usually topped it with a hard boiled egg carved expertly but simply into an open flower with the yolk in the center. She graciously made a TON of it for my high school graduation open house, with a little help from my mom, I think. I remember my mom talking about the "recipe" for it...She'd asked my grandma for it at one point, and it started with "some potatoes." How many potatoes? Well, it depends on how much potato salad you want, and how big the potatoes are. That kind of recipe. She always just made it from scratch, with no regard for measuring cups. I think at one point my Aunt Marilyn tried to nail down the recipe. She followed Grandma around the kitchen with measuring cups and spoons and back-measured the quantities of things that Grandma had already put in the bowl.
Maxine died several years ago, and in the last few years my mom has started making potato salad. She never did until then, because Grandma's would always be better. Now it gives me a little warm fuzzy that my kids are learning to love and appreciate "Grandma Breuker's Potato Salad" too...from their own Gram B.
I needed to have potato salad for a social gathering the other day, and heaven forbid I buy it. So I called my mom to get the recipe. It started with "some potatoes." How many potatoes? Well, it depended on how much I wanted and how big the potatoes were. Love.
But here's what she gave me. I tried it, and everyone was pleased with how it turned out.
6-8 potatoes, peeled and chunked
Onion, finely diced (maybe 1 medium one?)
Lots of eggs (she said maybe 10, I used 8 extra-large)
No celery (really? "We like it better without")
Mayo (3/4 cup or more - I used more)
A little mustard
Less than a tsp sugar
Tsp milk
Salt
Pepper
Boil potatoes until cooked but firm. Drain. Cool. Then chop coarsely with chopper.
Add diced onion and chopped egg (put through egg slicer both ways) and mix well.
Mix remaining ingredients and then stir into potato mixture. Add more of anything that it needs!
