Potato Salad

18 to 20 servings

• 5 pounds red potatoes
• 2 cups chopped red onions
• 2 cups chopped celery
• 1 quart mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons salt or to taste
• 2 teaspoons pepper or to taste
• 2 hard cooked eggs for garnish
• paprika for garnish

Peel and halve potatoes. Place in water to cover and on high heat bring to a boil until fork tender, about 9 minutes after the water begins to boil. Drain and cool potatoes with cold water. Cube the potatoes into about half inch cubes in large mixing bowl.

Add the salt and pepper and mix well. Add the chopped red onion and celery and toss well to mix. Add the quart of mayonnaise and mix to bind.

Transfer all the potato salad to a smaller bowl rounding up above the bowl edge if you wish. Peel the hard cooked eggs and slice with an egg slicer. Place the egg slices on top of the potato salad and sprinkle with paprika. Keep refrigerated until serving time.

The potato salad will have a much better flavor if you make it a day in advance of serving it. The extra time gives the flavors an opportunity to blend together. While not absolutely necessary, a helpful hint to increase the food safety of potato salad is to make it with mayonnaise which is already chilled.