World's Best Potato Salad

I write in several blogs... This one for the Reher side of the family, my Father's side, one for my Mother's side, the Sipple's, and one for my kids, just about me and them.

I was thinking... I really should post my Mother's (Juleen Reher's) famous Potato Salad recipe... Everyone who tastes it says it is the best they ever had...

I've never made it... I have the recipe, copied it when I was first married... just never made it... It has always been "Mother's job" to make the potato salad when the family gets together.

When the grandkids come home, they always want "Grammy's Potato Salad" and she has to make a big, big bowl.

Jerri's son, Phil, posted Grammy's Cranberry Sherbet recipe last fall, thinking it was a Reher Memory... and for him it was a Reher tradition, a Reher recipe. But actually his Grammy Reher got the sherbet recipe from her Mother so it came from the Sipple side of the family. Mother's meatloaf and her pies are other favorites of ours that come from her Mother, Adda Rockwell Sipple.

I had posted my Grandmother Sipple's Meatloaf Recipe on the Sipple blog... and so I was thinking of posting her potato salad recipe. After all these years of not having to look at it because it was "Mother's job" to make it, this morning I dug the recipe out and this is what I saw actually written on the recipe card:

Here's what's cookin' Potato Salad
Serves 6
Recipe from the kitchen of Aunt Dora & Mother...

Funny!! I thought it was Mother's recipe... or her Mother's...
and it originated with Aunt Dora... So I guess it is a Reher recipe...

Here is the recipe:

World's Best Potato Salad

4 medium red potatoes, boiled in jackets...
cool, skin, and dice in 1/2" squares

12 eggs, hard boiled, peeled and cut in 4-6 pieces
save 1 egg to quarter on top for decoration

1 Tbls minced onion
OR
1 small white or yellow onion, chopped...

Salt & pepper eggs and potatoes to taste

Dressing:
Mix together:
1 cup sugar
2 Tbls. sifted flour

Add:
1 cup sour cream
2 rounded Tbls. mustard
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3 eggs (raw)

Beat with mixer
Put in double boiler and stir until thick
Cool

Add about 1/2 the dressing to the potatoes, eggs & onion...
Stir to mix...
Refrigerate before serving

This is enough dressing for 2 batches and will keep in the fridge for a week or so...

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I talked to Mother this morning and she made several comments about the recipe:

You don't need to use a double boiler... she now uses the microwave...
It takes about 6 minutes and she stops it and stirs the dressing every couple of minutes.

Mother said she is not exact when measuring anything and adds an extra potato once in awhile... if there's too much dressing...
It's hard to measure because how big is a "medium" potato?
On the original recipe I had 3 potatoes... I crossed that out to read 4.
I also called my son, Matt, knowing that he has made this several times and he said he has used 4 potatoes or even 5.

Sometimes there is about half the dressing left over for another batch, and sometimes not that much... it depends on the potatoes, I guess, and how much dressing they soak up.

The last couple of times Mother has made this, she has used Idaho potatoes instead of the red ones and thought it better.

She uses real onion where the original recipe called for minced onion.

We like lots of hard boiled eggs and onion.

Matt also said that the first time he made it he used whatever vinegar they happened to have which he thought was rice vinegar... and it just wasn't the same as when "Grammy" made it. She then told him that Apple Cider Vinegar was the most important ingredient... besides lots of eggs.

As I hung up from talking to Matt, he said, "Good luck making the potato salad!" and when I said, "Oh, I'm not making it; I'm posting it" he said, "WHAT?? You're posting our secret potato salad for everyone to see?"

Hmmm... I didn't know it was secret...
I thought only the Cranberry Sherbet recipe was a secret. TeeHee

Enjoy!!

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1 comment:

Matty G said...

The recipe you posted is different than the recipe I got from Grammy. Probably because she has learned to do it differently over the years. And maybe she "simplified" it for me - either because she's learned to simplify it herself, or because she thought I was a "guy" who wouldn't be able to deal with the true complexity of such a fantastic potato salad. Haha. I'm glad to see the actual, real recipe!