Korean Potato Salad, or What We Had for Dinner While Watching Alien

Awhile back, V and I tried out a new restaurant. I can't remember the name of it, but it looked local and was next to an Asian grocery store in Iowa City, IA. The menu was divided into nationalities – Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. Considering my love for Korean drama, we picked from the Korean menu, and I found that while I love K-drama, no so much Korean food – spicy/sour combinations aren’t really my thing. But I did find that I adored the potato salad, which prompted me to Google a recipe. Tonight was my second time making it, and it turned out pretty well, if I say so myself. :-) This is a compilation of a couple of recipes that I’ve found online (http://www.food.com/recipe/kona-ks-korean-style-potato-salad-373784, http://koreanfood.about.com/od/sidedishesbanchan/r/PotatoSalad.htm, and http://www.food.com/recipe/kewpie-mayonnaise-384110), along with a couple of my own tweaks that I’ve added due to inspiration at a local restaurant. The instructions below are pretty much in a potato salad for dummies format, so if that bugs you, sorry, but it’ll help me the next time I make it.

Because there will be a next time.

Unless something strange happens, but that’s another story….

Korean Potato Salad

Ingredients:

4 medium potatoes, cubed

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 eggs

About ½ cup broccoli

Fake crab meat

Minced onion (to taste)

Salt and pepper (to taste)

½ cup or whatever looks right of Kewpie (Japanese-style) mayonnaise (see recipe below)

Directions:

1.  Make the mayo. It’s supposed to chill for at least an hour before using it, although it didn’t work out that way for us this time. Recipe is below.
2. Boil potatoes – after two minutes, add the eggs and carrots and continue boiling for eight more minutes. (10 minutes of boiling potatoes, total) Potatoes should be a little softer than for typical American potato salad – or maybe I’m just usually impatient. :-)
3. Cook broccoli in the microwave in a microwave-safe dish with a tablespoon of water for 4 minutes – while the potatoes etc. are boiling.
4. Drain potato mixture using a colander and then throw the broccoli on top.
5. Fish out the (now hardboiled) eggs using a spoon and transfer to a bowl/pan of cold water to cool off. (Or you can use your fingers if your hands are more heat-tolerant than mine.)
6. Transfer the contents of the colander to a bowl.
7. Peel the eggs, throw out the yolks (unless of course you have a use for boiled egg yolks), and chop up the whites to add to the potato salad.
8. Sprinkle minced onions (if you’d rather use regular onions, chop them and sprinkle with salt to get the excess water content out while the potatoes, etc. are boiling), salt and pepper to taste.
9. Shred fake crab meat and add to other ingredients. I used the equivalent of one really big crab leg’s worth of crab meat. This, I think, is one of those “whatever looks right” moments that drive my mother crazy.
10. Mix in mayo with other ingredients and serve warm if you like warm potato salad (we both do) or serve it chilled if you prefer it that way.

Kewpie Mayo (pretty much exactly like Food.com’s recipe at http://www.food.com/recipe/kewpie-mayonnaise-384110)

Ingredients:

1 egg at room temp

1 ¼ cups canola oil

1 tsp salt

½-1 tsp sugar

2-3 tablespoons rice vinegar

Directions: 

1. Crack egg into bowl of blender. (Make sure it’s as fresh an egg as possible. Older eggs do not combine properly with oil and vinegar to make mayo.)
2. Add salt and sugar and process until well combined.
3. With the motor running, add the oil in a slow, steady stream until all is incorporated (very important to add the oil slowly to ensure proper mayo consistency).
4. With machine running, add rice vinegar  
5. Cover and refrigerate an hour before ready to use. (We cheated this time around and used it immediately. No illness so far.) 

P.S. V thinks this is too salty to use in any other recipe, and he was the Mayo Making Man.

Oh, and we had BBQ ribs that I made in the crockpot with a cup of water, a sprinkle of brown sugar, and a squirt of mustard and a squirt of barbecue sauce on each rib. They cooked on low for about 6 hours-ish? They fell off the bone -- next time, I'll do my usual trick of baking them in the oven instead. And we also had cabbage -- we cooked bacon in a pan, crumbled it up, threw in the rinsed cabbage leaves, and added about half a cup or a cup of water and let it cook for twenty minutes-ish -- maybe more because it's nearly impossible to over-cook cabbage.

Enjoy!