Potato Salad (Zemiakový Šalát)

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Ingredients: 4 potatoes, about half an onion, 15oz can of sweet peas, 3 carrots, 2 dill pickles, 2 eggs, 6 tablespoons of mayonnaise, salt, black pepper, paprika
Prep Time: 1 hour, plus few hours to sit in the fridge

Yesterday my mom stopped here in Washington, D.C. on her way to San Francisco. I figured this was a golden opportunity to learn how she makes her really good potato salad. Here is the recipe for the Slovak potato salad, ala my mom.

cook potatoes cook carrots
Start by boiling unpeeled potatoes and 3 carrots, peeled, in salted water. At some point also hard boil 2 eggs.

diced onion slice carrots
Chop up about 3/8 of an onion into small cubes. For the non-math people, that’s a quarter plus half of another quarter.  The carrots are done once they get soft (check them by occasionally poking them with a fork).  Slice the carrots into thin quarter circle wedges.

chopped pickles
Also chop up the pickles.

veggies for salad
Combine vegetables in a pot.

cooked potatoes salad with potatoes
Take out the potatoes when they are almost cooked through (soft outside with a slightly hard core in the middle). Peel them, dice them, and add to the pot.

salad with mayonnaise mix mayo
Now stir in mayo. We started off with 3 spoonfuls, but ended up putting in 6.

hard boiled egg Slovak potato salad
Finally, cut up the eggs and mix into the salad. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Let sit in the fridge for few hours before serving. To see the final creation, check out the recipe for fried fish. Also, another popular Slovak salad is called treska. It is a fish salad made with onion and mustard.