Pennsylvania German Tuesday-Heart Attack in a Bowl

Take a good look at this. This, my friends, is a little bowl of heaven. This is a sweet and sour pile of bacony happiness. This is German Potato Salad. This is my grammy's recipe. Don't even talk to me about cold potato salad made with some slimy, mayonnaise based dressing. These are red potatoes coated in hot bacon dressing. Mmmmmm.....excuse me for a minute...oooohhh yeah......Are you drooling yet? Just be careful, you don't want to short out your keyboard. Since it would be cruel of me to tempt you thusly and provide no relief I am prepared to share the treasure that is my grammy's recipe.


First, you need to get a hold of a pound of bacon and dice it up. I find that easier than frying the strips and crumbling it up later. However, if you really dig getting your fingers all greasy, knock yourself out. Mmmmmm, smell the bacon frying. I can feel my arteries harden as it fries. You want to make sure you fry it very crisp because when it goes in the dressing I think it is gross if it's all limp and soggy. Eeewww. I just made myself ill even considering it. I am open minded enough to accept you may want flaccid bacon in your salad, I just don't want it in mine. Once it is fried to an appropriate level of crispness take the bacon pieces out of the pan and put them on a plate. Now, get ready because here is where your arteries all contract in unison and you go into cardiac shock....DO NOT drain the bacon fat out. You need it to make the dressing. Yeah, see that title up there? I believe in truth in advertising. I warned you.


Into the frying pan full of bacon grease you are going to add 2 cups of water, 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar (Ok, if you only have white vinegar I won't argue with you.), and two beaten eggs. Take some of the water and make a roux with 4 Tbsp of flour and black pepper to taste then add that back into the rest of the liquid before you pour it all in the pan full of grease.






It's going to look fairly vile when you add it all together. Just close your eyes for a moment and smell the bacon. Forget how it looks. But stir it constantly over medium heat until it bubbles and thickens.














Keep stirring. In a few minutes it will look like this. Much more appetizing, no? Yes, I thought you'd agree. I forgot to tell you earlier that you'll want to dice up 4 stalks of celery. That's not actually in Grammy's original recipe but that's my own tweak because I do like something a little crunchy in my potato salad and NOT undercooked spuds. Once the dressing looks like thick gravy and you turn off the heat you can throw the diced up celery and fried bacon pieces into it.





Oh yeah, I never quite told you about the spuds either did I? Well, before you ever started frying the bacon and inhaling the joyous aroma that is sizzling pork fat you want to have cut up and boiled 5 pounds of red potatoes. Can you make this with other kinds of potatoes? Technically, yes you can, but it would just be WRONG. My grammy won't come haunt you or anything. She was a very gracious sort. Sadly, I lack the level of virtue she achieved. I will glare at you menacingly until you use the red potatoes. Don't get an attitude with me. I cut you slack on how you want to fry your bacon and what kind of vinegar to use. If you want to go against me on the spud issue go ahead just don't go calling it my grammy's recipe. I can't abide that sort of heresy. But I digress....Ok, so there in the back is the hot bacon dressing all completed. In the front are the just boiled spuds. Please notice we keep the skins ON the spuds. This is another important consideration. I didn't like that when I was a kid. Grammy told me to eat my potato skins, they'd put hair on my chest. I was aghast. "Grammy! I'm a girl! I don't want hair on my chest!" I learned to eat my potato skins. Now I can't live without them. I am happy to report my chest does not sport any excess hair. And NO, I will not be offering photographic proof. You'll just have to take my word for it.


So now is the magic moment when hot dressing meets warm potatoes and you stir it all around. Now be gentle so you don't wind up with mashed potatoes, ok? Of course, it also helps if you don't cook the spuds to mush. This pot here has no calories because I used my handy-dandy, industrial strength calorie extractor on it. No calories whatsoever (she says with fingers crossed behind her back).

Ok, so I lied when I said it has no calories. It probably has about 4000 calories per bite. But when the magic moment where spud meets mouth occurs, trust me, you.will.not.care. Don't believe me? Ok, well when I made it this weekend for a picnic and a chef type guy I know, who also teaches other who wannabe chefs, took a bite of this he said, "This is seriously the best German Potato Salad in the world. That's some old school goodness. I need you to come talk to my students." (When I explained the recipe to him I thought he'd weep because I used the word "roux." Apparently his students have a mental block against the concept of a roux. Personally, I have a mental block against flour lumps in my potato salad, hence I have embraced the roux. Sing it with me...Roux, roux, roux your sauce, gently in the pan....) While my favorite way to have this is when it's all still warm, if you should happen to have any left it's not half bad cold either.

Lime's Grammy's German Potato Salad

5 lbs red skin potatoes, cut up and boiled
1 lb. bacon, diced and fried crisp
4 stalks celery, diced
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 eggs, beaten
4 Tbsp flour

-While spuds boil, fry the bacon. Remove bacon from pan when done but reserve the bacon grease.
-Make a roux with the flour and a little of the water.
-Mix together water, sugar, cider, eggs, and the roux then pour it into the pan of grease.
-Stir over medium heat until it bubbles and thickens.
-Remove from heat and add the bacon pieces and diced celery into the dressing.
-Pour dressing over cooked potatoes.

Fress up! (That means "Eat!")