Hello all, and welcome to yet another rockin’ BLOG entry. How is everyone doing? I hope you all are fine and thanks for reading. I thought another recipe would be nice, and seeing how it’s been getting colder lately, the time for barbequing is coming to an end. Unless you’re one of those crazy people who bbq in the winter.
What is a must when bbqing? Besides the burgers, franks and steaks. POTATO SALAD!! This is a recipe for a nice potato salad, Japanese style. The recipe doesn’t call for anything out of the ordinary, but you’re going to have to go to the Asian grocery to get ‘Kewpie’ mayonnaise aka Japanese mayonnaise. Ya know, I never knew til recently that mayonnaise had 2 N’s in it!! Ha GO JWU!!!! Anyway, Japanese mayonnaise is very different than the our traditional mayonnaise. Different in texture, different in color, and different in taste. It’s equally as bad for you but tastes 1000 times better. I’ve seen people that do not eat mayo, eat Kewpie and love it. IT’S THAT AMAZING!!!! :-) So go get some Japanese mayonnaise and make some good potato salad.
Recipe yeilds about 6~7 servings
What you’ll need:
4-5 Chef potatoes
½ Carrot
½ Onion
1 cucumber (pref. Japanese thin cucumber)
6 or more slices ham (deli style)
1tblspn butter
1tspn salt
1tspn white pepper
2-3cups Kewpie mayonnaise
The Method:
Now Japanese potato salad is almost like chunky mashed potatoes. I know what you’re thinking, ewwww, right? Let me tell you, it’s awesome.
In a medium sauce pan, fill 1/2 with water add potatoes and bring to a boil.
Potatoes usually take an eternity to boil so what I like to do is peel then cut them in half then throw them in the water. You can even cut them smaller than that but be careful if you do. The more pieces you cut the quicker it'll boil but the smaller you cut them the more water the potato is going to absorb. Which means watery potato salad. X. This is not good!!!
Then fine chop the onion. Put the chopped onion in a strainer, then place strainer into a bowl and run under cold water for about 5 minutes. What this does is it eliminates the ‘onion’ smell and the onions aren’t as spicy.
Peel the carrot, cut in half(the long way, so you have 2 semi circled pieces) and cut into 1/4 inch pieces ('Half moons') and then throw them into the boiling water with the potatoes.
Now for the cucumbers. Give a nice wash, cut the ends off, then cut in half (same as carrot) Slice the 1/2's as thin as possible, then place in a bowl and massage a handful of salt into the cucumbers, let stand for 2 minute then wash. Curing the cucumbers make it crunchy and for them to stay crunchy after being mixed into the potato. Dice up the ham and wait for the potatoes and carrots to boil.
Once the potatoes and carrots are finished, strain. Once water is out, add butter, salt, white pepper and mix and mash the potato. When the butter is done melting, add the rest of the ingredients and mix and mash.
Chill before serving, serve on top Iceberg or lettuce of choice. I also recommend throwing a couple of cherry tomatoes around the salad.
I hope that wasn’t to hard, I don’t think it is. This is a very good recipe, and I use it quite often. I like to chop up some boiled eggs and add that into the mix. Bacon is good too. It’s really the mayo, you can basically put anything you want into this salad and the kewpie will enhance the flavor and make it better. Good luck and happy cooking.