Potato Salad a la Zeughauskeller

[Diane Duane]

Potato Salad a la Zeughauskeller

Serves 4 as Side.

The Zeughauskeller (http://www.zeughauskeller.ch), located in the heart of Zurich, Switzerland, successfully straddles a very difficult divide between "tourist destination" and "locals' hangout". Once the cantonal armory, it now serves as a restaurant happily positioned just off one of the world's great shopping streets, the Bahnhofstrasse, and right by the busy Paradeplatz tram junction. Tourists probably know it best as the place with menus in nine languages -- a haven of big beer mugs and a wide spectrum of sausages, grills and Swiss specialties. Locals usually know it best as the kind of place where, when the furor of lunch dies down, you can sit and have a beer or a wine with a friend and gossip the afternoon away. But members of both groups may well know it for its potato salad.

Though this recipe does contain mayonnaise, it doesn't need as much as some, since the mayo gets thickening assistance from the potatoes' own starch, drawn out of them by a dousing with boiling stock. The restaurant goes through approximately twenty tons of this potato salad each year.

The Zeughauskeller's boss was kind enough to give us the recipe some years back...so here it is. This is an adaptation of the original, as most of us do not normally want to deal with twenty kilograms of potatoes at once.

• 3-3/4 lb Mealy potatoes
  
• 1 c beef stock
  
• 1 c chicken stock
  
• 1 small onion
  
• 1/2 oz fresh parsley
  

Salad dressing

• 1/2 c Mayonnaise, fresh if possible
  
• 1/4 c Brown or yellow mustard, as you prefer (more if desired)
  

(Because this preparation involves a prolonged session at room temperature while the stock and potatoes come into equilibrium, special attention must be given to making sure that the pots and pans involved are scrupulously clean. I normally freshly wash my pots and then scald them out with boiling water.)

Peel the potatoes and cut them into chunks -- quartering them seems to work well with smaller potatoes: if you have big ones, it probably makes more sense to chop them into eighths.

Cook in boiling salted water until "almost ready". (This is obviously very subjective: I go for the equivalent of "al dente".) Drain, trying to retain in the pan any starch that has come off the potatoes while boiling: but get rid of as much as possible of the water. Bring the stocks to boiling and pour them over the potatoes. Allow the potatoes to rest in the stock for 45 minutes.

Finely chop the parsley and onion: add them to the mixture and toss them together, letting them sit for five or ten minutes further to bring out the flavor. Then mix in the dressing.

Serve faintly warm.

Keywords: Side, Intermediate, Potatoes, German

( RG1429 )