As our chances of going back to Hawaii start looking slimmer due to COVID19, I'm starting to make more and more Hawaiian food to remind me of the islands. This Hawaiian Potato Mac Salad recipe is from my friend Kathy and was also published in the 1998 NSC cookbook.
My friend makes THE BEST Hawaiian potato mac salad. She said that the trick to a good Hawaiian Mac Salad is adding in potatoes, and mushing some of it up in the salad with the mayonnaise. You still want to taste some chunks of potatoes, but you want some of it to disintegrate into the salad and blend with the mayonnaise to have the right texture and mouth feel. So basically, there is an art to how much mixing you should do when you incorporate everything in the salad.
The second trick is to pickle some red onions in a vinegar sugar syrup, and then drain out the syrup before adding them into the salad. (Don't make the same mistake I did the first time and accidentally add in the syrup mixture to the salad too.)
And the final trick is to make sure to use a lot of hard boiled eggs and Best Foods Real Mayonnaise. Make it the day before you serve it (or at least a few hours earlier) to allow all the flavors to meld together. Then on the day of serving, add a splash of water (NOT more mayo) and mix to loosen up the salad.
I think I finally got the hang of making this after all these years.
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| Pickle the red onions |
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| Mash a bit of the boiled potatoes |
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| Add hard boiled eggs--lots of it |
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| Incorporate everything together with best foods mayonnaise |
Here's the recipe below from my friend Kathy with notes and tricks added. The pictures above are for double this recipe.
Yields 6 servings
Ingredients:
- 2 large russet potatoes, unpeeled
- 4 hard boiled eggs
- ½ a medium red onion, finely chopped
- 8 oz dry elbow macaroni
- 2 c Best Foods Mayonnaise
- 1 can of tuna (5oz) drained*
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 to 3 T water (optional)
Pickling Syrup ingredients:
- ½ c vinegar
- ½ c sugar
Procedures:
1. Make the pickling syrup by boiling the vinegar with the sugar in a non-reactive pot until the sugar is dissolved. Cool the syrup. Pour syrup over chopped red onions and let it pickle for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.
2. Boil the potatoes until just soft, but still firm. When the potatoes are cool to touch, peel the potatoes and cut into 1 inch cubes. Take about a third of the potatoes and lightly mash them. (You can do this directly in the same bowl; just eye ball about a third of the potatoes. This partial mashing of the potatoes give the salad the right mouth feel when eating the salad later.)
3. Boil the macaroni in salted water according to packaged instructions. (Here you don’t want the macaroni to be aldente, but rather cooked all the way through.) Rinse and drain.
4. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, macaroni, drained tuna and chopped hard boiled eggs. DRAIN the pickled onions. DISCARD the pickling syrup. Add pickled onions to bowl with all the rest of the ingredients. Add mayonnaise and mix well. Then taste and add some salt and pepper as needed.
5. Allow the potato mac salad to sit in the refrigerator for a few hours for the flavors to meld. When ready to serve, give the salad a good stir and if it looks a little dry, then add a few tablespoons of water, NOT mayonnaise, to loosen things up.