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Potato Salad
1 quart new potatoes
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 tablespoon oil
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons vinegar
Thin mayonnaise or boiled
I onion dressing
2 stalks celery
Cut beets
Lemon
Lettuce
1 tablespoon capers
Boil potatoes until done, but not too soft, slice them when cooked and add oil and vinegar. Chop onion and celery very fine, and add, with capers, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour a thin mayonnaise over the potatoes, mixing thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Garnish with lettuce, a few pieces of lemon and cut beets.
A straightforward dressed potato salad, with the important detail buried mid-paragraph: the potatoes are dressed twice, first with oil and vinegar while hot, then with mayonnaise.
- Dress the potatoes hotDress the potatoes warm -- the recipe has the oil and vinegar going on as soon as the potatoes are sliced "when cooked," which implies they are still warm. Warm potato takes up the acid better than cold, so the seasoning is not left to the mayonnaise alone.
- A quart of potatoesMeasured by volume, sliced or as small whole potatoes, roughly a pound and a half. Waxy new potatoes hold their edges; a floury baking potato will collapse into mash under the wooden spoon.
- "Done, but not too soft"A skewer should meet slight resistance at the centre. The recipe does not say whether to peel before or after boiling; small potatoes boiled whole will take roughly 15 to 20 minutes.
- Thin mayonnaise or boiled dressingBoiled dressing is a cooked egg-and-vinegar sauce thickened with flour or cornstarch, common in this period and generally sharper than mayonnaise. To thin either one, slacken with a spoonful of vinegar, milk, or the potato cooking water until it pours.
- Cut beetsCooked beets, sliced or diced, used purely as garnish. Keep them off the salad until serving or the whole bowl turns pink.
- The wooden spoonThe recipe calls for one specifically. Whatever the reason, fold rather than stir, and stop as soon as the dressing is distributed, so the slices stay whole.
- Yield and servingNo yield is given; a quart of potatoes with the additions will serve four to six as a side. Best at cool room temperature rather than refrigerator-cold, which mutes the vinegar and stiffens the dressing.
Potato salad in American cookbooks of this era divides along a clear line: the German-influenced hot version dressed with bacon fat and vinegar, and the cold mayonnaise version that came to dominate. This recipe straddles both, applying oil and vinegar to warm potatoes in the older manner before finishing with mayonnaise in the newer one. The capers, lemon and beet garnish suggest a company dish rather than everyday fare, and boiled dressing is offered as an alternative here as it is in many books of the period.