American cooking leaves a lot to be desired.

A lot of the things that we make are lessened versions of other cultures’ cuisines that we have dumbed down and taken all of the rich history out of.

Like when I went to New Orleans and I took a class at the New Orleans school of cooking, I love the fact that they only teach how to make red beans and rice on Mondays because traditionally that was wash day and on wash day you wanted to have something cooking all day long so that once you were done doing your laundry you had your red beans and rice ready to go for dinner.

I love the rich history in food like that and I want to start doing a lot more cultural cooking.

My ethnic makeup is a melting pot of European countries, but for this blog post I’m going to look into my German heritage. My maiden name is Kettler, which is very German, so I thought I would start there. When I went to Germany when I was in high school, I was introduced to a lot of German foods like schnitzel and Spaetzle and sauerbraten. German food tends to have a lot of acidity and fat to it.

One such recipe that shows this is German potato salad. Now what we Americans think of as potato salad is cold, overcooked potatoes in a highlighter yellow sauce and is usually served as a side dish with a backyard barbecue. But this German potato salad, while it has a similar flavor, it’s also served warm and is a little more fattening. In fact, German potato salad is not yellow but it has bacon in it and how can you really go along with anything that has bacon?

Short answer: you can’t.

So if you’re ready to try something new, I think you should try this German potato salad!

German Potato Salad Recipe

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Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Total Time 40

Course Side Dish

Cuisine German

Ingredients

2 pounds red potatoes diced into 1" pieces
1 teaspoon salt for boiling the potatoes
12 ounces bacon diced into 1" pieces
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic about 3 large cloves
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

Instructions

Place the potatoes in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and stir in 1 teaspoon of salt. Reduce heat and simmer the potatoes for 15 to 20 minutes or until tender when stabbed with a fork. Drain the water. Leaving the potatoes in the pot, return the pot to the still-hot (but turned off) burner. Leave the lid off of the pot and allow the potatoes to steam dry for a couple minutes.
Set another large pot over medium heat and add the bacon strips directly into the pot. Cook the bacon, stirring occasionally, until crispy.
Once the bacon is done, remove the pot from the stove and use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon pieces to a plate or bowl while leaving the bacon grease in the pot (I had about 1/4 cup).
Slowly and carefully add vinegar, sugar, Dijon, salt, and pepper to the pot of bacon grease. Place the pot back on the burner, bring the mixture to a simmer, and stir for a couple of minutes.
Stir the minced garlic into the mixture and cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the garlic starts to turn a light golden. Remove the pot from the heat and toss in the sliced potatoes, gently mixing until potatoes have absorbed all of the liquid.
Carefully fold in the cooked bacon pieces and chopped parsley. Transfer the potato salad to a serving dish and serve hot or warm. Potato salad should not sit at room temperature for more than two hours before refrigerating any leftovers.