Drain potatoes and garlic. Remove
garlic.
Put drained potatoes in bowl, on top
of veggies. The potato heat will cook the vegetables ever so slightly, so that
they still crunch but are not too hard. Mince cooked garlic and add. Take two
knives and chop the potatoes by making X cuts a few times. You want nice
bite-size potato chunks.
Add 1 cup of vinaigrette (see below
for recipe). Stir gently until all ingredients are evenly mixed. Add more
vinaigrette if you think it needs it. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serving:
Delicious served warm, or chill in refrigerator for a couple of hours. If you
chill it, you can add a little mayonnaise (maybe 1/4 cup) just before serving.
Vinaigrette:
Vinaigrette recipes vary. Most cookbooks call for 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.
I prefer a proportion of half and half. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is best, and I
use cider vinegar.
The two knives had me baffled, but I decided to ignore that. I could not believe
that those ingredients made it smell that great. Sure enough, as soon as I
tasted it I realized that whoever made that salad had added a generous dose of
raw garlic after it was all said and done - quite perfect - I would have done
the same exact thing. Before digging into what turned out to be a marvelous
potato salad, I pointed out the sign to my wife.
"Can you believe that?" I asked
"and
here I am eating a salad at Smitty's Pub. You know I don't subscribe to the
Everything Happens for a Reason theory, but this is too funny. I need to
write down some notes, I hope you don't mind."
My wife has known me for a while now,
so of course she did not mind. I always carry a notebook of some kind in my
pocket for exactly this same reason. I took it out, got a pen from my belt pouch
and I looked around to get a better impression of my surroundings. As I said, on
one side, there was a long bar, some friendly looking people sitting at it and a
perfectly appropriate barmaid. Once in a while she would walk out from behind
the bar and scan people's Keno submissions.
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