Soaking Potatoes In Vinegar Adds Special Flavor To Salad

Dear Laura: I’m trying to replace a favorite potato salad. I clipped it from the paper a number of years ago and have lost it. Its special flavor came from soaking the potatoes in vinegar before mixing the salad and dressing. Hope you can help me. - Jo, Spokane

Dear Jo: This version, Mom’s Potato Salad, comes from “Patio Partners,” the July 1980 Dorothy Dean recipe page. Hope it is the one you seek.

Mom’s Potato Salad

6 medium potatoes

1/2 cup minced onion

2 tablespoons vinegar

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup minced celery

1/4 cup cut-up pimento

1/4 cup minced dill pickle

4 hard-cooked eggs, chopped

1 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon prepared mustard

Boil potatoes in jackets until tender. Cool slightly and peel. Dice into salad bowl; add onions. Sprinkle with vinegar, salt and pepper. Refrigerate 1 hour.

Add celery, pimento, dill pickle and eggs. Blend mayonnaise and mustard; mix into salad. Garnish with hard-cooked egg rings, if desired. Refrigerate until serving time.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

Dear Laura: Please print a recipe for homemade enchilada sauce. We do not like the canned sauces. Mexican restaurants have better. Thank you. - Jackie, Spokane

Dear Jackie: Many different sauce recipes are available. Try this one, adapted from an early ‘80s book, “Best of International Cooking,” by Annette Wolter and Christian Teubner.

Enchiladas Sauce

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon flour

1/4 cup mild chili powder

4 cups tomato juice

1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste

2 tablespoons canned or fresh diced green chilies

1/2 teaspoon dried leaf oregano, crushed or 2 teaspoons fresh minced oregano 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 garlic clove crushed with 1/4 teaspoon salt

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Stir in flour; cook 1 minute. Stir in chili powder until blended. Stir in tomato juice, tomato paste, chilies, oregano, cumin and garlic-salt mixture. Simmer about 15 minutes; keep warm until ready to use or refrigerate until needed, then reheat.

Dear Laura: A few weeks ago you printed a letter from a gal who was looking for the Grape Nuts Brown Betty recipe her mother had made for her and her sister as children. Here is a recipe that probably is the original. It is from a 1932 General Foods cookbook. I’m including the recipes for the suggested sauces as well, since they’re often part of a remembered dish’s special taste.

I also have a request of my own. Do you have any recipes for maraschino cherries that are plump, crisp and not too sweet, like commercial ones? Cherry season is here, and I’d love to be able to make a few jars of real maraschino cherries. All the recipes I’ve tried so far yield a soft or tough cherry that is more like an overly sweet canned cherry or like cherry preserves. Thank you so much! - Jean, Spokane

Dear Jean: Thanks for sharing the recipes. I’ll print all but the Butterscotch Hard Sauce; since it contains raw egg yolk, I can’t recommend it to the public.

I don’t have a tested maraschino cherry recipe to offer. Kathy Wallenhaupt, a food and nutrition specialist at Kootenai County Extension, and her food preservation assistants report results similar to yours. If another reader has a safe recipe that provides a more satisfactory product, I’ll be happy to print it.

Grape Nuts Brown Betty

3 large apples, pared and thinly sliced

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

5 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup sifted cake flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup Grape Nuts

Layer the apples in a greased baking dish; sprinkle with mixture of sugar and cinnamon. Dot with 1 tablespoon butter.

Cream remaining 4 tablespoons butter. Gradually add brown sugar; cream well. Add flour, sifted with salt, then Grape Nuts, stirring well. Spread lightly over apples. Bake, covered, in moderate oven (350 degrees) for 30 minutes; then remove cover and continue baking 15 minutes more, or until apples are tender. Serve warm with Yankee Sauce or a Butterscotch Hard Sauce.

Yankee Sauce

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Dash salt

2 cups water

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup raisins, optional

1-1/2 tablespoons vinegar

Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt; add water and butter. Stir in raisins, if desired. Cook 10 minutes. Add vinegar. Serve hot.

Yield: 2 to 2-1/2 cups. , DataTimes MEMO: Have a food question? Looking for a recipe? Laura Carnie, a certified family and consumer scientist and food consultant in Coeur d’Alene, would like to hear from you. Write to Cook’s Notebook, Features Department, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. As many letters as possible will be answered in this column; sorry, no individual replies.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Laura Carnie The Spokesman-Review