Week 46 - Potatoes

The problem with a theme like potatoes is that we love potatoes, which means there are too many great-sounding dishes to choose from! When this theme came up, the first thing that came to mind during these cooler days was a warm potato salad, and after some looking around, I decided on Swabian kartoffelsalat from the southwestern area of Germany (based on this recipe from Five Heart Home). Usually when I think of warm German potato salad, there is some sort of bacon involved, but this one was just potatoes and onions, so I was curious how it would turn out.

I usually like to do all of these challenge meals on my own (with some prep help from A when needed so we don't eat too late at night), but A did most of this one after I accidentally crushed my thumb hard with the refrigerator door. It's thankfully better now, but there was no way I was going to be able to peel and thinly slice potatoes with only one working hand (and the other one in throbbing pain). At least I chopped the onion before that happened.

The recipe here was fairly straightforward. Just boil the potatoes until tender, then peel them and slice them thinly. Put them in a large bowl and top with some beef broth, minced onions, apple cider vinegar, and salt and pepper. Then the bowl gets covered with plastic wrap and sits at room temperature for half an hour to let the potatoes soak up all those delicious flavors. Parsley goes on top as a garnish once the time is up, along with mixing in a few tablespoons of neutral oil.

This potato salad was simple but so good! Letting the potatoes and onions sit in the beef broth made such a difference from other potato salads. We ate this with some bratwurst (TJ's) and cucumber onion salad (which thankfully I had made earlier in the day before the thumb incident), and it was a lovely German night for dinner.