Hot German Potato Salad

When I was 8, a babysitter took me to a trendy, new restaurant that happened to serve the incredibly "exotic dish" of "German Potato Salad." I was dumbfounded and immediately developed a serious crush on the dish. Luckily, I found a recipe for it in my mother's old red-and-white copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook. I cooked it so often enough as a kid that I rarely had to actually follow the recipe. Then I grew up and forgot about it.

In the early 1990's I was living and teaching in a very small town Korea. Some of my fellow teachers and I would sometimes travel to Seoul for a weekend in the "Big City." One late October weekend we arrived with tickets for one international 5-star hotel chain's Oktoberfest festival. It was a wonderful treat to gorge on Western food for a change, but the highlight of my evening was a huge and often restocked platter of hot German potato salad. While reading over the festival booklet I learned first that Oktoberfest began as a wedding celebration and second that I could eat about 10 lbs. of it at one sitting.

I've found the original recipe I used from a site devoted to that old Betty Crocker cookbook, below.

Ingredients:

4 medium red or white potatoes (1 1/3 lbs)

3 slices bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)

1 tbsp Gold Medal all-purpose flour

1 tbsp sugar

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp celery seed

Dash pepper

½ cup water

¼ cup white or cider vinegar

Instructions:

1. After bringing to a boil, simmer covered whole potatoes until tender. Cool, then slice.

2. Cook bacon until crisp. Drain bacon on paper towel. Crumble when cool.

3. Cook onion in bacon fat until translucent. Stir in flour, sugar, celery seed and pepper. Cook over low heat until mixture bubbles.

4. Stir water and vinegar into sauce mixture. Bring to a boil for at least 1 minute, stirring constantly. Turn heat to low.

5. Stir in potatoes and bacon gently to coat with sauce. Serve warm.

Notes:

• The very first time I tried this recipe I doubled it. I've never made it just to serve 4. More likely, I buy a bag of potatoes and a pound of bacon and go from there.

• Many people prefer to fix this dish the day before and allow it to season overnight. With microwaves so ubiquitous, you can still store it in the refrigerator but serve it warm.

Sources:

http://www.chiff.com/beer/oktoberfest.htm

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/hot-german-potato-salad/39665c22-834a-4d6b-9d9e-218b1e423365