Friday, May 22, 2009

Potato Salad

As a child I was taken by my folks from time to time to a place in the centre of Birmingham called the Ceylon Tea Centre. It was in the days before I enjoyed tea but I guess pop and cake probably kept me happy enough. One day they opened a restaurant upstairs called The Salad Centre.

I found a feeling of strange dread come over me that I would be required to eat things such as lettuce and tomatoes on their own.

Thankfully the restaurant had little to do with the country then known as Ceylon (Sri Lanka now) and I found they had scotch eggs or pork pie. I was encouraged to try one salad item (you could choose three to accompany your 'main' thing). I noticed spuds so chose a potato salad.

Friends, it was mind-blowing. And that dish is still one of my main comfort foods, especially when too many potatoes have been cooked for Sunday lunch. I like it so much that whenever we have guests for Sunday lunch I try to make a point of cooking too many potatoes.

You will need to mix together:
  • Cold boiled potatoes, preferably having been tossed in butter yesterday, cut into 1 cm cubes
  • A spoonful or two of mayonnaise
  • Black pepper
  • A few pieces of crumbled brie (other cheese will do)
  • 1 chopped spring onion
  • A handful of sultanas (raisins will do)
Play with the quantities but remember an eight year old boy, reading the Beano while his parents talked about things he didn't understand, eating it with a scotch egg. Wonderful.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the combination of quantities msut be crucial because some potato salads are awful! And mine never had Brie in it.

I associate this with being a very 60s or 70 dish. Gives away your age?

On a related theme of age
we did a warm up at school on 'how did you learn to read?'
Janet and John featured very strongly with people of a certain age.
Pauline

Steve Tilley said...

My age is no secret. 54 in four days time.

Martin said...

I shall try to remember to cook too many potatoes (but not to roast or mash too many) next time I cook a roast.