My great-grandmother was a wonderful cook, and ‘wonderful’ doesn’t even do it justice. I was really young when she died, but I do remember many of the things she made, one especially being her potato salad. Oh! It was so good. It was a traditional style, with white potatoes and celery and onion and hard-boiled eggs. There’s not a written recipe for it, but I always think of her whenever I make a bowl.
In the summertime especially, it just seems right to keep a bowl of potato salad (and coleslaw, to me they always go together) around to enjoy. I love it when Av gets outside with the grill and makes us some nice snapper or steak or lamb chops. He makes the hot food, and I make the cold food.
I noticed the other day that the website for Big Bob Gibson’s in Decatur, AL has their recipe (just click on ‘recipes’ after the cute flash animation) for potato salad – theirs is nice and really different, because they add their white chicken sauce to it – it’s probably my favorite restaurant-served potato salad. I had all the ingredients for it already, so I made a big bowl of it this week with just some very small changes.
BTW, you can buy white sauce online at their site if it’s not carried at your grocery store.
Ingredients:
3lb. red potatoes (this recipe makes enough for eight or ten servings)
4 hard-boiled eggs, diced as large or small as you like
3/4 c. Mayonnaise
1/3 c. Sweet Pickle Relish (I use Wickles – it’s sweet and hot)
White Onion (I used a nice sweet Vidalia) – dice the whole onion, add as much as you like
1/4 c. Big Bob Gibson White BBQ Sauce
1 tbsp seasoning and dry rub (I used a creole seasoning – Tony Chacheres)
1/8 tsp celery seed
salt and pepper
Directions:
First, wash the potatoes thoroughly and dice into bite-size pieces (which, for the size potatoes I bought, was about four pieces/potato). Add the potato pieces to salted, boiling water. Let boil for about 15 minutes until tender but not mushy. Drain and let cool some (you can speed this up by running cold water over the potatoes in the colander).
Add the potatoes to a large mixing bowl. To this bowl, add the diced hard-boiled eggs and the onion. I added about half the onion at this point, reserving the rest to see if I needed to add any more of them later.
Add dry seasoning and celery seed. Mix well.
Once it’s mixed well, you can get an idea of how much mayonnaise and white sauce you’ll need. Add about half of each and mix, then continue to add more until you have the right consistency.
Add salt and pepper to taste, and add any more onion if you like.
Refrigerate so it’s nice and cold for when you want to serve it. It turned out really great!