Hot German Potato Salad

Hello all!
Close your eyes... Wait! Don't do that, you can't read with your eyes closed! Ok, lets try again... Image if you will, bacony, slightly sweet, yet sour and tangy hot potatoes with a hint of onion and celery seed. YUM! Best yet, if you don't like some of the ingredients, they are optional! If you can't do onions, chop up some celery and saute that instead then leave out the celery seed. If you don't like celery, leave it out completely! You can do lots of variations on this recipe. In fact even though I used the food network's recipe as an outline, I added elements from my dear friend Curtis' recipe and my grandfather's recipe to make it my own. I feel a bit of ethnic obligation towards this dish, because I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few people of German dissent that does not like Sour Kraut, but I LOVE this stuff! And as my high school voice teacher put, "With your broad shoulders, blonde hair, and blue eyes, you just LOOK German so you will sing German songs!" Never mind I have green eyes, and sadly that isn't the first time a guy has mentioned my broad shoulders to me...

  Here is the problem with this recipe, I WILL EAT THE WHOLE PAN. It has half a pound of bacon in it for crying out loud! It is so addictive, that when Curtis would make this, he'd leave me with a big tupperware of it and I'd eat it everyday until it was gone. This is worse than my dumpling obsession. Which by the way, I'm still looking for a great Steamed Dumping place near Baltimore, so if you know of any... please let me know! In my book, all Chinese restaurants are judged by their dumplings and although I love to cook, usually when Matt goes out of town I buy 2 orders of dumplings and live off those and cereal until he gets home. I just don't like cooking for myself and the amount of left overs is usually pretty overwhelming, so its better if I have a party of 2 or more to cook for. Ok, now that I've gone off on a dumpling tangent, I can get down to my other ethnic obsession:

Hot German Potato Salad

Here is the original link I got my recipe from:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chic-easy/german-potato-salad-recipe/index.html

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes
• 1/2 pound thick-cut bacon
• 3/4 c. chopped onion
• 2/3 c. cider vinegar
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 Tbs Dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp celery seed (optional)
• 1 tsp salt

Scrub the potatoes thoroughly removing any residual dirt, eyes, and cutting out any yucky parts

 Place the potatoes in a medium-size pot and cover them with enough water to extend 2 inches above the surface of the potatoes. Salt the water and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Continue cooking until potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork, about 15 to 20 minutes. You can do the rest of the steps below until it is time to drain and slice the potatoes into 1/4-inch rounds. But just for visual continuity I put all the potato steps below. Sorry if you have to jump back and forth!

 

If your potatoes are like mine, they are not all uniform size, so check the potatoes periodically. You may have to pull out smaller potatoes first

Cutting potatoes!- Thank you Sous Chef Matt!!!

Matt's chopped potatoes

 

While waiting for the potatoes to boil, chop the onion and set aside

I slice in half first, then make horizontal cuts on the onion. I am sure everyone knows how to cut up an onion, but I've found doing it this way helps to make my chopped onions a more uniform size

Then I chop the sloped ends off one side

Rotate the onion and chop the sloped end off the other side, this will leave you with a rectangle of onion which is more stable than trying to go all the way across right to left.  Sounds weird, but you'll get a more uniform chop from your onions

I accidentally chopped up too much onion, so I took the "left overs" and put them in a freezer bag and will stash them in the .freezer. This is a great time saver for future recipes (like BBQ pulled pork..)

Cut the bacon up into small pieces. This will cut off time since you won't have to crumble it. I find that this also keeps you from over cooking to make sure it crumbles. i.e I usually burn it when I try to cook bacon to crumbly consistency...

Most bacon comes in 1lb packages, so just cut the package in half and then chop. This also helps when you cook the rest of the bacon for breakfast. You mind sees 4 slices of bacon, but you're really only eating 2 whole slices.

Slicing the bacon

Thin slices

1/2 lb of sliced bacon- MMMMMMM

Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Once crisp, place on a paper towel-lined bowl. Save 1/4 c. of the bacon grease and set aside

Bacon grease! This goes back in the pan after you've removed the bacon

Put the reserved bacon grease back into the pan, turn the heat to medium, and add the onion. Cook until translucent and just beginning to brown, about 4 to 5 minutes.

 
Whisk in the vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery seed, and salt and stir until thick and bubbly.

I know this looks like specific apple cider vinegar, but I've used Heinz brand, and store brand and they've all been fine, so use what you've got!

Here is my plug for the Soulard spice shop. LOVE LOVE LOVE them in St.Louis. Since I don't live there anymore, they are amazing and ship their spices. They have the BEST grilling blend called "Soulard Grill." I will put the link to their shop below, so if you want to give some of the blends a whorl you can order and have them shipped.

Everything whisked together

Add the sliced, cooked potatoes and toss to coat. Toss in the crumbled bacon. Serve warm.

And here is the finished product! 

As promised, here is the link to the Soulard Spice shop:
http://stores.homestead.com/hstrial-LSokolikDoran/StoreFront.bok

They have EVERYTHING, and will ship, so you don't even have to leave the comfort of your home to get some fantastic spices headed your way! I highly recommend:
- Seasoning for greens - Smoky, slightly sweet and a bit spicy. GREAT on Asparagus and Green Beans
- Beef Rub - Just as it says, nice rub or you can add a Tbs to 1 lb of ground beef for seasoned hamburgers
- Soulard Grill - Good on EVERYTHING
- Applewood Smoke - Its great on meats you would normally grill but don't want to go out in the rain, sleet, snow or dark of night ;-)

There are many more delicious spices as well, but these are the main ones I can think of off the top of my head.

 Happy Eating!