Potato and Cervelas Salad Swiss style
The idea is simple. boiled potatoes, sausage and cheese. All the rest is optional.
That’s what the Swiss use to bring for picnics in the mountains. It is one of their national dishes with fondue. That’s what I ate for the first time in Rheinfelden and Zurich when I spent my holidays with my great aunts, Annie and Mathilde a long time ago. It stayed with me
Ingredients for 4 (adjust accordingly)
8 medium size potatoes
2 sausages.
Cervelas is like an oversized frankfurter of wiener. So either you find jumbo frankfurters or you use 4 regular ones. Any sausage with a smooth texture will do. Cervelas is already cooked. With frankfurters or wieners you might have to boil them first and let them cool before using them in the salad. Dont get sick by eating raw sausages, doctor’s advice.
200g of Gruyere cheese.
Any hard cheese will do (Jarlsberg, Emmentaler, Edam, etc. I have no idea what kind of cheese you find in US supermarket, especially in the Midwest or the Great Plains😉) but Gruyere is better.
8 radishes
3 celery stalks cut in small slices. I skipped them because I forgot to buy some 😭
6 green onions or 1 small white or red onion (green is better)
6 gherkins or pickled cucumbers as they might be called in the center of the US (wink, wink…)
Sweet or not, your choice.
Half a bunch of parsley, the leaves only (non negotiable!)
a few tarragon leaves (negotiable) or dill, or chives, or nothing…
For the vinaigrette sauce
1 teaspoon of mustard (regular kind)
1 teaspoon of whole grain mustard (harder to find) Another spoonful of regular mustard if you can’t find the whole grain mustard.
3 tablespoons of cider or malt vinegar
4 tablespoons of oil, the one you like better. I used olive oil.
salt, pepper
Preparation
Boil 4 liters of water (that will be 16 cups or 1 gallon for you) in a big pot with 3 spoonfuls of kosher salt
Add the potatoes when the water start boiling and cook for 20 minutes (watch it! it might try to overflow 😱)
When properly cooked, you must be able to stick a fork in them effortlessly.
Either you peel them or you leave the skin as I did. More taste with the skin but I fear you'll peel them...
Drain and wait for the potatoes to cool down.
In the meantime, prepare the vinaigrette
Mix all the ingredients and stir until smooth. Leave aside. Was that easy enough?
Cut the sausages (once cooked and cold). If you have jumbo frankfurters of wiener, cut them in half lengthwise then cut thick half slices. If you only have regular size sausages, just cut them in round slices
Cut the gruyere cheese in small cubes
Cut the radishes in thin slices
Cut the pickled cucumbers whichever way you like 😁
Slice thinly the green onions or cut the white or red onions in tiny little cubes
Chop the leaves of the parsley (and any other herb you added, you daredevil!)
Cut the potatoes lengthwise now that they are cool enough not to give you 3rd degree burns. You might need those hands of yours again, who knows…
Cut them in thick slices like you did with the sausages
Mix all the ingredients, add the vinaigrette sauce, stir and serve.
Bon appétit !
You can replace the vinaigrette with mayonnaise, who am I to judge? I just don't want to hear about it 😜
