When my mom was a young mother in the 50’s, she spent a lot of time cooking and making up recipes. One of her meals was a potato salad that was a little different from the common one of the time, and a steak marinade.
The potato salad? At a grill out, I made a huge batch of it. One of the guests who tried it then brought *every new guest* over to it telling them to eat it, because it was so good.
I don’t think it’s *that* good, but it is extremely tasty. It’s a kind of bland plain 50’s potato salad (no pickles, no celery, no mustard, yes eggs) with Bacon added.
Y’see, my mom had married a kid of German descent, and her Mother in Law made the traditional hot potato salad that has bacon in it. My mom looked at it and said ‘that would be good in plain potato salad’. And it is. I mean, how could it not be? So, it’s a plain, fatty potato salad with bacon. And eggs. Yeah. You eat it because it’s fatty. Mmmmmmm, fat….
All summer long, she’d make her steak and this potato salad, and even though she died a few years ago, I get to feel like we are home again when I make them.
I recently was asked if I’d be willing to share my mom’s steak marinade, and since I was making it for today anyway, I figured why not. And then I can’t picture the steak without this salad, so you have both! And like that woman who had her fudge recipe on her tombstone for all to enjoy, I know my mom would love to live on in other people’s cooking. Even if they change it to fit their tastes, like she changed recipes to fit her. So go ahead, add the pickle and celery and whatever else you think would work. I have actually in the past *drained the bacon grease* into the salad as well.
You did good, mom. <3 you and miss you.
For this you need
4 cups of potatoes- salted, boiled, cooled, diced
2 hard boiled eggs- boiled, peeled, and diced (I do both of these in the instant pot. These were small so they got 7 minutes. I then peeled then, diced them and salted them.
1 finely chopped onion (about 1 cup of onion.)
1 tsp salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
5 sliced cooked diced bacon (I used three extra thick slices and drained them this time)
~1 cup mayo (add more if you like it gooey. I do.)
And the proof this dates to the 1950’s, after all the above is mixed well, paprika! It’s not just to decorate it. A nice hot paprika adds nice flavor to it.
And there you have it.
