Ingredients
3 large potatoes (red or Yukon gold)
6 hardboiled eggs
1 celery stalk, sliced thin
5 green onions
1¼ cup mayonnaise
½ cup sour cream
2 tsp. Silver Spring Beer’n Brat Mustard
Pepper
Salt
Cook’s Tips
Key ingredient is the mustard.
Procedure
- Peel, slice, and boil the potatoes. Cool in the refrigerator.
- Cut chilled hardboiled eggs in half and separate the yolk from the whites. Crumble the yolk into a separate bowl and chop the whites and add with potatoes.
- Add celery and green onions to potato and egg whites.
- Combine the mayo, sour cream, mustard, salt, pepper, and egg yolks into a smooth consistency. Add to potato mixture.
- Chill for two hours, then serve.
Review
Another month, another “salad” for us to try out. In my search for a concrete definition of what constitutes a salad, I ended up with “anything chopped and chilled and served with a dressing or encased in gelatin” — a blanket statement that includes both the rise and fall of the popularity of Jell-O salad and the classic picnic staples of potato and pasta salads. This time, I was working on the latter and realized I had never made this type of dish before, instead always relying on the store’s prepackaged interpretations.
The most difficult part about this recipe was trying to figure out the right number of potatoes. I wasn’t sure the three large potatoes that the recipe card calls for would be enough for what would be nearly two cups of dressing. I decided to trust the recipe and grabbed the three largest potatoes at my grocery store before chopping them up and boiling them. I left the peels on because I like potato skins. This also saved me time, which I put toward grumbling while peeling my hardboiled eggs.
After everything was chopped, boiled, and chilled, I mixed it together in a bowl and watched my earlier concerns about potato-to-dressing ratio come true. It seemed like the potatoes were just a vessel for the mayo and sour cream, and they weren’t actually the star of the dish despite their name being in the title. Then again, I’m no potato salad connoisseur, so maybe that is the correct ratio, and I’m just a weird person who doesn’t like a lot of dressing on things. When you make this recipe, do it with the original amounts, but have a spare potato on hand in case you agree with me.
A few hours later, I was ready to taste the creation and found that it tasted exactly like one would expect a potato salad to taste: cool, creamy, and bland flavors. Despite the recipe creator, Rheta McCutchin ’56, identifying mustard as the key ingredient, I couldn’t really taste it, which was slightly disappointing after I spent extra time searching out the specific brand, sure that it was going to make or break this dish.
All in all, it was a good dish and nowhere near as intimidating as other salad recipes that we’ve tried out. I still stand by my opinion that it needed either more potato or less dressing, but it was quick and easy to make, so I’m not too upset about the results. However, it also tasted like a potato salad that you could get at the grocery store and not have to wonder what to do with the remaining sour cream before it goes bad. If you have to bring a dish to the next get-together, it’s up to you if you want to be honest about your “homemade creation.” Your secret is safe with us.
Do you have a salad for the team to try out? Send us your favorite — or terribly feared— recipes!
