Chef Lupita
Coditos con Camaron Sinaloenses
Sinaloa's pinata-and-wedding pasta salad. Elbow macaroni, small Pacific shrimp, mayo, crema, and the brine from a can of pickled jalapenos. Always cold. Always next to the frijoles puercos.
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Ensalada de Papas Menonita
Created by
Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua's Mennonite potato salad: cold-folded with sweet pickles, mustard, mayo, and crema. The German-heritage sweet-tang you will not find anywhere else in Mexico.
Salads
Mexican
Potluck
BBQ
Picnic
25 min
Active Time
25 min cook•2 hr 50 min total
Yield8 to 10 servings
This is a Chihuahua dish. More specifically, it is a Cuauhtemoc dish, from the Mennonite colonies that settled the high plains north of the city in the 1920s and brought a German Low-Saxon kitchen with them. Drive an hour northwest of Chihuahua city and you are in Campos Menonitas: wheat fields, dairy barns, blonde children speaking Plautdietsch, and a food culture that reads almost nothing like the rest of Mexico. The queso menonita on every Mexican grocery shelf comes from these colonies. So does this potato salad.
The signature is the sweet pickle and the mustard. Not jalapeno. Not chipotle. Not lime. Sweet pepinillo and yellow mustard, folded into mayonnaise loosened with crema mexicana, dressed over warm boiled potato. That sweet-tang is the German heritage of the Mennonite kitchen, and it is found nowhere else in Mexico. If you try to make this with dill pickles or hot pickles, you have made a different salad. The sweetness is the point.
I spent a week in Cuauhtemoc on the 32-state project, eating in Mennonite kitchens where the women still bake their own bread on Tuesdays and roast their own coffee. The potato salad showed up at every comida, on the same table as queso menonita, kielke noodles, and warm flour tortillas, because flour tortillas belong to Chihuahua the way corn tortillas belong to Oaxaca. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and Chihuahua's includes this. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
The Mennonites of Cuauhtemoc arrived in 1922 from Manitoba, Canada, after the Canadian government withdrew the religious-instruction exemptions that had originally drawn them from the Russian Empire in the 1870s. President Alvaro Obregon granted the community a Privilegium guaranteeing exemption from military service and the right to operate their own German-language schools, and in exchange the colonies agricultural-industrialized the high desert of northwestern Chihuahua, eventually producing roughly half of Mexico's apples and the bulk of its industrial cheese. The dishes they brought, including this potato salad with its sweet-pickle and mustard signature, descend from the Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonite kitchens of Prussia and Ukraine, and have remained largely intact across nearly a century of Chihuahuense isolation, a German-heritage food tradition preserved on Mexican soil.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
yellow potatoes (Yukon gold or papa amarilla)
Quantity
3 pounds
scrubbed
kosher salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon
for the cooking water
large eggs
Quantity
6
mayonnaise
Quantity
1 cup
full fat, the real one
crema mexicana
Quantity
1/2 cup
yellow mustard
Quantity
3 tablespoons
apple cider vinegar
Quantity
1 tablespoon
sweet pickles (gherkins or pepinillos dulces)
Quantity
3/4 cup
finely diced
sweet pickle brine
Quantity
3 tablespoons
from the jar
celery
Quantity
1/2 cup
finely diced
white onion
Quantity
1/2 cup
finely diced
fresh chives or green onion tops
Quantity
2 tablespoons
thinly sliced
kosher salt
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
sweet paprika
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon
for finishing
sliced hard-boiled egg (optional)
Quantity
for serving
chopped chives (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| yellow potatoes (Yukon gold or papa amarilla)scrubbed | 3 pounds |
| kosher saltfor the cooking water | 1 tablespoon |
| large eggs | 6 |
| mayonnaisefull fat, the real one | 1 cup |
| crema mexicana | 1/2 cup |
| yellow mustard | 3 tablespoons |
| apple cider vinegar | 1 tablespoon |
| sweet pickles (gherkins or pepinillos dulces)finely diced | 3/4 cup |
| sweet pickle brinefrom the jar | 3 tablespoons |
| celeryfinely diced | 1/2 cup |
| white onionfinely diced | 1/2 cup |
| fresh chives or green onion topsthinly sliced | 2 tablespoons |
| kosher salt | 1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1/2 teaspoon |
| sweet paprikafor finishing | 1/4 teaspoon |
| sliced hard-boiled egg (optional) | for serving |
| chopped chives (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 8-quart pot for the potatoes
- •Small saucepan for the eggs
- •Large mixing bowl
- •Wide silicone spatula for gentle folding
- •Sharp paring knife for peeling and dicing
Instructions
- 1
Boil the potatoes whole
Place the scrubbed potatoes whole, skin on, in a large pot. Cover with cold water by two inches and add the tablespoon of salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, until a paring knife slides into the largest potato with no resistance. Whole and skin-on is how the Mennonite cooks of Cuauhtemoc do it. The skin holds the starch in and the potato stays firm instead of waterlogged.
Do not boil hard. A rolling boil cracks the potatoes open and they soak up water. Lazy bubbles, partially covered. - 2
Hard-boil the eggs
While the potatoes cook, place the eggs in a separate saucepan and cover with cold water by one inch. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. The moment it boils, cover the pan, kill the heat, and let the eggs sit for 11 minutes. Drain and shock in ice water. The cold stop is what gives you a clean peel and a yolk that is set but not chalky.
- 3
Cool, peel, and cube
Drain the potatoes and let them cool on a sheet pan until you can hold them comfortably. Peel them with a paring knife or rub the skins off with a kitchen towel. Cube into 3/4-inch pieces. They should be just warm, not hot. A hot potato breaks down into mush when it meets the dressing. A cold potato will not absorb the flavors. Just warm is the right window.
- 4
Build the dressing
In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, crema, mustard, apple cider vinegar, and the three tablespoons of sweet pickle brine. The brine is not optional. It is the German-heritage signature of Mennonite cooking and it is what tells you this salad came from Cuauhtemoc and not from anywhere else in Mexico. Taste the dressing now. It should be tangy, sweet, and assertive. Season with one teaspoon of the salt and the black pepper.
If your mayo is a lean brand, the dressing will taste thin. Use the full-fat mayonnaise and the dressing will hold its body even after the salad sits. - 5
Fold in the vegetables
Add the diced sweet pickles, celery, white onion, and chives to the dressing. Stir to coat. Peel and chop four of the hard-boiled eggs into rough 1/2-inch pieces and fold them in. Reserve the remaining two eggs, sliced, for the top.
- 6
Fold in the potatoes gently
Add the warm cubed potatoes to the bowl. Fold with a wide spatula, lifting from the bottom rather than stirring in circles. You want every cube coated but still intact. Taste again and adjust salt. Warm potato absorbs salt differently than cold potato, so the seasoning will shift as it cools. Add the remaining half teaspoon of salt if it needs it.
- 7
Chill and finish
Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours, or overnight. The salad needs the cold time. The mustard and pickle brine settle into the potato and the dressing tightens. Before serving, transfer to a clean serving bowl, arrange the sliced eggs across the top, dust with sweet paprika, and scatter chopped chives over the surface. Serve cold. Asi se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •Use yellow waxy potatoes, not russets. Russets fall apart and turn the salad pasty. Yukon gold or papa amarilla holds its cube and gives the salad the body it needs.
- •Sweet pickles are the recipe, not a suggestion. If your supermarket only stocks dill, go to a different store. The Mennonite pantry runs on sweet preserves: sweet pickles, sweet relish, fruit jams. Substituting dill is making a different salad.
- •Crema mexicana, not sour cream. Crema is looser, less tangy, and it lets the mustard and pickle brine carry the acid. Sour cream takes over the dressing and turns it into something American.
- •This salad needs to sit. Two hours minimum, overnight is better. A freshly mixed potato salad tastes like its parts. A rested one tastes like itself.
Advance Preparation
- •The salad can and should be made one day ahead. The flavor deepens overnight as the dressing settles into the potato.
- •Hold for up to three days refrigerated, covered tightly. Stir gently before serving and adjust salt, since cold dulls seasoning.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 265g)
Calories
400 calories
Total Fat
26 g
Saturated Fat
6 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
20 g
Cholesterol
145 mg
Sodium
760 mg
Total Carbohydrates
32 g
Dietary Fiber
3 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
8 g
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