The Infamous German Potato Salad

I really like German Potato salad. I think it is a nice change from the typical potato salad that is smothered in mayo. However, perfecting this recipe eludes me. Sometimes it turns out well and other times it is a disaster. It seems so easy, a couple basic ingredients added to a hot pan, stir, add to potatoes and voila! But no, this is my moby dick.


Take the first time I tried to make this dish. (Wayne’s World Time Warp inserted here) BP II and I had just begun dating. It was a weeknight and I was making my polish kielbasa and sauerkraut dish. I thought a German potato salad would really bring the dish together. I found a recipe online and thought this would be great. Everything started off fine, browed the bacon and reserved the fat. When I added the water, vinegar and cornstarch the lumps would NOT go away, no matter how hard I stirred. I thought it was a fluke dumped the bad batch and tried again. I was out of bacon grease so I used butter as the fat to make a roux. I did everything the same and again the lumps of cornstarch would not go away. I am starting to panic now. BP II is in the living room waiting… the kielbasa is done… the sauerkraut is done… what am I going to do? I try the sauce one more time and it happens again. In a fit, I take out my roommate magic bullet and try and blend these lumps away. But the sauce was too hot and when I tried to remove the blending bottom…..POP… the sauce went everywhere. I started to cry. I felt so defeated. BP II came over and saw the disaster that was my kitchen and the tears. The jig was up. He now knew what an unstable crazy person I was. But he wiped away my tears and together we made another sauce for the potato salad. It was not that great, but it worked. When we sat down to eat, he quietly whispered in my ear, “After this is over, I will make fun of you relentlessly but for now I will let it go because you are obviously unstable.” Now isn’t that the man you want to marry?

That event will forever be known as The German Potato Salad Incident. Since then however, I have made the dish several times and it comes out great. I really like how the vinegar adds that savory element. I am telling you really good. Anyway, I made this dish last night. And like I said, sometimes it turns out well and sometimes it turns out ok. I do not know why. Last night was an ok German potato salad. I did not add bacon because I feel like I have been eating a lot of bacon. I save my bacon fat now, so I just used a little of that for the fat element. It probably would have been fine except I did not cook the potatoes enough. What an elementary mistake. How did this happen? The curse continues.

Here is the recipe. See if it works for you.

German Potato Salad

Ingredients:
4 potatoes
4 strips of bacon
1/3 cup of chopped scallions
1/3 cup of water
¼ cup of vinegar
1 TBL of cornstarch
1TBL of sugar

Directions:

• Boil potatoes until tender, but still a little firm. About 15 minutes. Let cool and cut into 1 inch cubes

• Combine water, vinegar, sugar and cornstarch to a bowl and set aside

• Cook bacon in a pan until crispy. Remove and set on paper towel to drain.

• Add vinegar and water mixture to the hot bacon grease. Stir until the sauce begins to thicken. About 3-5 minutes

• Add potatoes, chopped scallions and bacon to pan. Stir until sauce is evenly distributed. Season with salt and pepper.

Seems easy right? HA!