Week 4 - 24 Hours

There are some themes for the 52 week cooking challenge where I have absolutely no idea what I want to do, like Week 4's theme - 24 hours. The themes are open to interpretation, but all I could think of was a complicated recipe that would take 24 hours to make, in which case, no, thank you, I'll skip this week because no one with a toddler has time for that. Thankfully, other people on Reddit were also in need of guidance, and someone suggested a recipe that has to chill overnight, so one that would technically take 24 hours, but not necessarily 24 hours of cooking. That worked for me, and after a little bit of thought and remembering that mayo-based salads like cole slaw often turn out better when made the night before, I decided to try my hand at the quintessential New York deli-style potato salad, something I've always wondered how to make.

Ingredients:

I decided to follow a recipe I found on Food.com for this type of potato salad, knowing that we were going to have to make one significant ingredient change that could make the salad taste completely different. A central ingredient in deli potato salad is mayonnaise, and with B's egg allergy, that was just not an option. I had been wanting to try out vegan mayo for a while because of his allergy, figuring it could be a good replacement in tuna salad and the like, and this was a good excuse to pick one up.

Who knew that it would be so hard to find vegan mayo? Apparently, Trader Joe's discontinued theirs about six months ago, which I didn't know when I went to the very crowded store before the snow trying to find it. I ended up finding one at Fairway, but after looking at every shelf in the condiments aisle, they had exactly one brand of vegan mayonnaise, Avonaise, so Avonaise it would be.

The ingredients for our modified potato salad were:

- 3 lbs Dutch yellow baby potatoes ($5.58)
- 1 cup Avonaise ($5.47)
- 3 tbsp white vinegar ($0.15)
- 2 tbsp sugar ($0.20)
- salt, freshly ground black pepper, and garlic powder to taste ($0.10)
- 1/2 sweet onion, finely minced ($0.40)

Even though potato salad is a side, this recipe was not cheap. It came out to approximately $11.90, in part because of the Avonaise, since regular mayo would have been maybe 60% of the price. Once I started making it and realized just how many potatoes made up three pounds of potatoes, and how there would only be three of us eating and we didn't even know if B was going to like the potato salad, I realized I should have halved the recipe. It would have been much more manageable since potato salad wasn't our entire dinner. This potato salad was enough for a potluck. Oh well, lesson learned.

Steps:


To make the potato salad, I pretty much followed the instructions in the recipe, except that I decided to refrigerate it overnight at a minimum. The steps were:

1. Bring pot with water and potatoes to a boil and cook until potatoes are fork tender. Drain and cool potatoes.

2. While potatoes are cooking, mince the onion, and combine with all the non-potato ingredients to make the dressing. Mix well.


3. Once potatoes have cooled a little bit, rub the skins off and then slice. Add potatoes to the dressing and mix in well. Season to taste.

4. Refrigerate overnight so that it's ready to eat 24 hours later (since that's the challenge theme!).

Assessment:


How did this potato salad end up comparing to the NY deli-style potato salad I grew up with and really like? Well, texturally, it was right. I wasn't sure when I put it in the fridge if it would be, but when I tested it a few hours later (I checked it throughout the day to see how the flavors changed), it absolutely reminded me of deli potato salad in texture.

As far as the taste, there was something missing, but I don't think that's the recipe. Every time I tried it throughout the day, even as I tasted the flavors improving the longer it sat in the fridge, I kept thinking something was missing. NY delis use mayonnaise, actual mayonnaise with eggs, and I think that's a big difference in the flavor. Vegan avocado-based mayonnaise just can't replicate the same flavor that you get with eggs. The ingredients are just different, and I think part of what gives deli potato salad that distinct flavor is the eggs and the mayonnaise. Also, a lot of the mayo brands I usually buy seem to include some form of mustard in their mayo combinations as well, and I think this might have been improved with a little bit of mustard (which, again, wouldn't have been an issue if we used regular mayo - although I do note that Duke's doesn't seem to have mustard but is a delicious outlier). Lastly, I think if I made this again, I would probably include the entire sweet onion instead of half. I did half because I wasn't sure how strong the raw onion would be for B, but it was pretty sweet and the whole onion would have been fine and also added some more flavor.


Potato salad alongside some rotisserie chicken and grape tomatoes. Kind of like a picnic...
So, would I make it again? I don't know. It was a lot of work (not hard, just time-consuming with the potatoes), and to do all of that again with those modifications and to still feel like it was missing something would be a little disappointing. If B outgrows his egg allergy, maybe someday I'll try this with real mayo, and if he doesn't, maybe I'll try it again with these tweaks, but there are so many other things I'd rather try first. Just to be clear, there was nothing wrong with the potato salad, I was happy to eat it, I'm glad I made it, and it was not tossed on the floor in its entirety by the toddler, but there was just that missing taste that will continue to bug me.

As far as the challenge, in the interests of full disclosure, the time from the start of the potato salad making to the time we ate it wasn't 24 hours. I had every intention of having the potato salad ready to go 24 hours prior to the next night's dinner, even planning to make it on MLK Day because we would both be home for the holiday, but I woke up really late from a nap and then had to make it at the same time as rushing through that night's dinner, so everything got delayed. But I think it still counts for the 24 hours challenge because I intended for it to be a 24 hour thing, it still was in the fridge overnight for us to eat the next day (even if not a strict 24 hours), and the only reason it was less was because I was tired and moving slowly. I'm not officially participating anyway, but that's why it counts for me.