Salată orientală (Romanian potato salad)

This is exactly the salad my mom used to make for me during my entire childhood. I always liked to stay with her and help out by peeling the boiled and warm potatoes or the eggs or by cutting things in slices. In Romanian it's called "Salată orientală", which means "oriental salad", but it's traditionally Romanian. :)

When she stayed with me and my Mira during her first months of life I asked my mother to make it and I documented it here, not that the instructions would have been too complicated to follow but because I wanted to have pictures of this salad actually made by her hands, now when we're three generations of girls instead of just two :). It may be very simple and not really worth sharing given how wide-spread it is, but I love this salad and the memories it brings back and I intend to "save" it exactly the way my mom makes it.

Last year: Risotto carbonara (Italian).
Two years ago: Plăcintă cu dovleac (My mom's pumpkin pie, with puff pastry) (Romanian-Moldavian).



Ingredients (serves around 4):

• 750 g potatoes
• 4 eggs
• 50 g black olives
• 1/2 of a red bell pepper
• 4 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 1 small red onion
• salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes for 50 minutes, whole and unpeeled. Also hard-boil the eggs. In a large bowl, mix the tomato paste with the oil, minced onion and olives:

When the potatoes and eggs are boiled, peel them and slice (or cut them into cubes). Add them to the bowl. Also cut the bell pepper into cubes and add it. 

Mix well and season with salt, pepper and some more oil to taste, seasoning and tasting and mixing again and so forth :). (I loved to watch my mom do this with virtually every recipe of hers - all the mixing and tasting and adjusting the seasoning and all over again until it was just perfect).

 It's done, dig in! :)