Salad. Of. Potatoes!

My brother Karl hates mayo (though it's pretty cool how it works). He calls it pus. I'm not a big fan, either, so I make potato salad with whatever else I have. Today I had some mayo and not much of anything else. So I had to use the pus. Sorry, Karl.

Purists will note: this is not German potato salad, or hot wild vinegar potato salad, or weird-ass fancy potato salad. It's potatoes dressed in white stuff with a few other things, such as salt. Very basic.

You'll need:

Boiling potatoes

Eggs

Pickles

Yogurt, sour cream, mustard, mayo if you have to

Spices (I use jalapeno paste here, but have been known to use rosemary, thyme, and/or tarragon)

salt and pepper

The first thing you want to do is take about a half-dozen medium-sized red-skinned (boiling) potatoes (about two pounds I'd guess). DON'T peel them. Cut them into chunks roughly the same size. Boil them until they're just done, drain, and refrigerate.

In another pot, boil 2-3 eggs until hard. Best way I've found to boil eggs: put eggs in cold water that covers them. Heat on medium-high. When they start boiling hard, let them boil just five minutes, then turn off the heat and let them cool to room temperature. Douse them in VERY cold water and peel immediately. Generally speaking you only lose a couple of eggs in a dozen to shell-stick this way.

When you're ready to make the salad, put the potatoes in a large bowl. Chop up a handful of small gherkins and add them to the potatoes. You could use half a large dill if that's all you have. You just want some of that pickle-y taste and the crunch, too.

In a separate small bowl, put about 1 1/4- 1 1/2 cups of white stuff. I like to mix mustard and yogurt (Stonyfield is the best), but sour cream is nice too; I've used yogurt cheese, softened cream cheese mixed with milk -- just about anything will do.

Since today I just had a little yogurt and no mustard, but did by some freak of nature have mayo, this is yogurt and a couple of spoons of mayo, with a heaping tsp of jalapeno paste. Add a scant tablespoon of salt (salt has its own newsletter!) and mix together.

Pour over the potatoes and pickles. Mix GENTLY. You want chunks of potato, not mashed potato. If you need more dressing, mix some up in the separate bowl and pour and mix again.

Chop egg coarsely and add to salad. Sprinkle black pepper over everything. Mix GENTLY.

Check that your salad has enough dressing. Some people like it drier than others (we like it pretty dry). Taste and adjust seasoning. You want it to taste like something. At this point, it'll taste mostly like egg, potato, and pickle. If it just tastes starchy, add some salt. It's what usually needs adjusting, so try a little of that first, then adjust the rest. Let sit in the fridge for at least an hour to combine flavors.

There you go.