Bowls filled with potato salad abound during the summer months, but never more than on tables for the Fourth of July.
Southern cooks have known for generations that the best potato salad is one that keeps things simple: Tender potatoes combined with mayonnaise (preferably Duke’s), celery, onion, chopped eggs, some dill pickle juice and maybe, just maybe, a dash of ranch dressing.
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It’s important to make sure the potatoes aren’t soggy after boiling, and my mother, who made the best potato salad ever, had a trick for drying out potatoes that had absorbed too much moisture. She drained the water from the pan she’d boiled them in, then put the potatoes back in the pan in a single layer and placed them back on the stove with the burner to steam the water out. Brilliant. Steaming the water out of the potatoes makes for a better overall consistency once the dressing is added.