Crab Boil Potato Salad
Enough for a party or a picnic (or a long weeknight alone mainlining Friday Night Lights when your food priority is an entire meal you can eat with one spoon– this is a space of trust, I won’t judge your lifestyle.)
This potato salad, in its ideal form, as God/Goddess/Buddha/Higher power/Neil deGrasse Tyson himself would prefer it, is made from the spicy, dense, delicious potatoes leftover after a crawfish boil. When you pack up the leftovers from a crawfish boil you have very few actual crawfish tails (I mean if you’re going to peel them anyway it’s REALLY FUCKING HARD to just put them in a Ziploc for later use and much easier to just put them directly into your mouth). So you end up with your other boil components: corn, potatoes, maybe garlic heads, mushrooms, sausage, artichokes. It’s a plethora of delicious-ass food, but the potatoes in particular are so versatile and wonderful because they’ve been pre-cooked in a vat of All Things That Are Good and you can basically pretend part of you is still enjoying a crawfish boil.
But we can’t all have crawfish boil leftovers (especially with the current price per pound I said GOT-DAMN) so this version allows you to take some liberties with your raw materials but still achieve the hot, spicy, tangy perfection that is crab boil flavoring without getting all Old Bay bullshit on yourself and your friends. (NOTE: Old Bay serves its purposes adequately, particularly in bloody marys, but don’t try and substitute it here, that’s a terrible fucking idea full of Chesapeake Bay swagger and tomfoolery, and an insult to my swamp culture).
Ingredients
5 lbs red potatoes, cut into large cubes (bigger than bite-sized)
4 oz Zatarain’s Concentrated Liquid Shrimp & Crab Boil
1 dozen eggs, hard boiled/peeled/rough chopped
½ small purple onion, chopped finely
A metric buttload of mayonnaise (I am a Hellmann’s worshipper, so if you prefer some weirdo brand or Miracle Whip bullshit don’t blame me if your salad tastes like shit, sorry Grandpa, you were a yankee so you didn’t know any better but MW was and has always been the worst and it bummed me out when you only had it in your fridge but I loved you too much to tell you)
Yellow mustard
Sweet relish
You can add celery if you want crunch, but I forgot to buy any and bravely forged ahead without rectifying that and it was delicious, so whatever. You do you.
Directions
Put your washed, cubed potato pieces into a pot and cover with water. Add about 4 oz. (about half a bottle) liquid crab boil concentrate to the pot (you have a LOT of potatoes here). Bring to a boil, and boil until taters are soft. Try one– it should ideally not be super flavorful at the first bite, then a stormcloud of righteous cayenne should making landing on the back of your tongue and you should start planning all the ways you’re going to experiment with liquid crab boil concentrate. If you don’t get a storm cloud, add a LITTLE more boil and cook for 3-4 more minutes. Drain.
When your potatoes are cool-ish, plop them into a serving bowl. Add your chopped eggs and chopped onion. Add a shit load of mayo (seriously start with like 2 cups), a few squirts of yellow mustard, a few squirts of relish (start easy on the relish and adjust as needed), and black pepper. Stir it up. Add more mayo if it’s too dry. Add more relish if you want it sweeter. Add more mustard if the color isn’t yellow enough (I seriously think mustard should be seen and barely tasted in this scenario).
Cool (preferably overnight so the boil flavors can leach into the rest of the salad) and serve cold. Sprinkle with some paprika if you’re feeling fancy. I’m always feeling fancy.
Usually potato salad is like the half-assed pot luck contribution of the summer (which is BULLSHIT because it’s not that easy to make and the way more half-assed thing to do is to just bring a watermelon [sans vodka] but oh noooo people just looove fresh watermelon, let’s have a seed spitting contest! are you kidding me get out of my face you literally just gave a cashier $6 you contributed NOTHING you get NOTHING) but I made a boatload of this for the baby shower and halfway through the party, when we were only halfway done making and serving burgers and hotdogs, the bowl was scraped clean, little spoonmark crop circles left on the bottom in the most pathetic and endearing way.