sweet pickles – Ali Does It Herself

We had a Valentine’s cold-plate potluck at work on Tuesday and I was assigned to make a potato-egg salad. And as the best one out there belongs to the Pioneer Woman, that’s the one I made, with some modifications of course. Ever since the grocery store down the block closed I have found myself without certain key ingredients at unfortunate times. Today, it was green onions. So I improvised.

Wash and cube about 5lbs potatoes. I used two different kinds, for the colour. You can peel them if you want, but I like the texture and flavour of potato skins so I left them in. Plop those in a large pot and boil them until they’re tender and mashable.

You’re also going to want to hard boil 4 eggs, through whatever method you use. When they’re ready, peel them up. Mine were pretty recalcitrant and refused to be peeled in a civilized manner. The shells would not come off without a fight.

I punished them through the vigor of my chopping (even if your eggs are well-behaved, you’ll still want to chop them up).

Finely chop as well half an onion (or 5 green onions).

And a handful of sweet pickles. You can use dills, if you prefer, but I think it’s better with the sweet ones.

In a bowl, mix together about 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise and 4 tablespoons mustard (I used a stone-ground dijon here, but you can use what you like).

In a wee bowl, arrange about 1/2 teaspoon paprika and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. I also added 2 tablespoons dried chives, for colour, as I was missing the green onions.