Crushed Potato Salad: What a Bite

I get positively giddy the moment the first new potatoes appear in the farmers' market or in my CSA basket. I particularly like them when they're small enough to be eaten in just a single bite. I roast them in olive oil with some garlic, salt, and herbs, and when they're cool enough, just pop them into my mouth. I absolutely adore the way that floury potato flavor explodes with every bite. Perfection.

Of course, once I've eaten those little roasted potatoes a number of times, and as the smallest ones get harder to find, I start looking for other ways to cook new potatoes. A couple of weeks ago, long before potato season, a recipe from one of my favorite blogs, The Wednesday Chef by Luisa Weis, caught my eye: Ottolenghi's Crushed Potatoes with Horseradish and Yogurt. (Ottolenghi is Yotam Ottolenghi, the chef-owner of four veggie-centric restaurants that are all the rage in London. He also writes a vegetarian food column in the Guardian.) I don't know what appealed to me more -- the idea of crushed  potatoes or the thought of horseradish.

While I was dying to try the recipe right away, I decided to wait until new potatoes were in. My patience was greatly rewarded. It's actually a potato salad, but it's unlike any other you've ever tasted. The horseradish (I used lots!) gives the potatoes a zingy, assertive bite, while the yogurt adds a tangy, creamy taste. The Wednesday Chef recipe was adapted from one that appeared in Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. 

While Ottolenghi's original recipe calls for Greek yogurt, Weis strongly recommends against it -- she feels the salad really needs the moisture and silkiness of regular plain yogurt -- Liberté brand, if you can find it.  (See her comment/correction to the previous version of this post below.) I have the good fortune to be able to get Brookford Farm  yogurt at both the Portsmouth farmers' market and Philbrick's Fresh Market in Portsmouth. The yogurt is made in the East European style by a charming young couple, Luke and Caterina, from the milk from their herd of grass-fed Jerseys.

This potato salad is incredibly easy to make -- and it's one  you could take to a picnic without worrying about the food-poisoning potential of mayonnaise. Ottolenghi also has a website that features a number of his recipes. I suspect I'll be going back there soon for more ideas.

 

Potato Salad with Yogurt and Horseradish

from Wednesday's Chef, based on a recipe from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook.
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 1/4 pounds of new potatoes
10 ounces, plus more to taste) plain yogurt
3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon, or more, of prepared ground horseradish (I used about half a bottle!)
4 scallions, thinly sliced (white and pale green parts)
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
A small box of garden cress (You could also use arugula or watercress)

Instructions
1. Wash the potatoes, but don't peel them. Put them in a pan with salted water to cover, cover, bring to a boil and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, until tender. Drain well, transfer to a large serving bowl and, while they are still hot, crush them roughly with a fork.

2. In a small bowl, mix the yogurt, olive oil, horseradish, scallions, salt and pepper to taste. Pour this dressing over the hot potatoes and mix well. Adjust the seasoning, adding more horseradish or more salt. You want the dressing to be assertive - the potatoes will mellow it out. Just before serving, snip in the garden cress and mix once more.

Potato Salad: Why Not Think Pink

Maybe it's the fact that the temperature hit 90 degrees on Easter. Or that it seems I haven't needed a coat in weeks. Or that our chive plants in Portsmouth were flourishing in March.

Whatever the reason, I had a hankering for that old summer picnic standby, potato salad.

The night before, we'd rotisseried a couple of chickens outside on our Weber grill -- so there was cold chicken in the fridge. And we'd spent the morning at one of the last of the Seacoast Winter Farmers' Markets, so we had fresh greens from Heron Pond Farm for a salad. What could be a better accompaniment to an April alfresco lunch on the deck than a homemade potato salad? There was only one hitch: I knew the potatoes we had on hand were Adirondack Reds, the pink-fleshed relatives of the blue potatoes I wrote about last time. I wondered: could potato salad be pink?

The answer would probably have been "no" if I'd been thinking about the traditional American mayonnaise-based version. But I'd spent the past year or so trying to replicate the potato salad from Karl's Sausage Kitchen on Route 1 in Saugus, which with its vinegary, oniony taste, is my current gold standard. Sure, I could probably ask Karl's for their recipe, but then I'd miss all the fun of trying to figure it out myself.

Here's what I've come up with so far: first, onions should be minced, not chopped. Second, in order to get as much flavor into the potatoes as possible, I sprinkle a healthy amount of salt into the cooking water. (Is there such a thing as a healthy amount of salt?) Third, as soon as the potatoes can be handled after cooking, I slice them (leaving the skins on, because there are lots of nutrients there) and put them into some champagne or white wine vinegar, mixed with a little white wine. If I've minced the onions in the food processor, which I usually do for this, I also pour in the onion juice, frequently adding a little prepared horseradish as well. You'll have to rely on taste here, rather than a recipe, as much will depend on how pungent the onions are as well as the sharpness/sweetness of your vinegar. 

The hot potatoes will absorb this mixture, so once things have cooled down a bit, I give it all a taste -- this will help me decide how to make my viniagrette dressing. Are things too puckery bitter? I may want to add a little sugar. Too bland? Maybe a little dijon mustard, another pinch of salt, and some more horseradish. Once those decisions are made, I add the onions, dress the potatoes with a bit of my viniagrette, to which I've added only enough oil to give it body, plus a few twists of freshly ground pepper, and a big handful of those chives that started it all. 

You can eat this potato salad warm or cold, but I like it chilled just a little bit, so the flavors have time to meld. Now, don't you agree: there's nothing like pink potato salad served with cold chicken on a plate of greens to make you think summer.