Our ‘Best Potato Salad Ever’
My family has put me on a potato salad time-out.
That’s because I’ve made so much potato salad during The Great Confinement that we’ve each gained about 9,000 pounds. OK, I’m kidding — but it’s surprising we haven’t, considering the carbo count these past few months.
In more normal times, I try to avoid potatoes in favor of lower-carb vegetables — and when I eat them, they’re a rare treat (like sweets for some people). But in confinement, I’ve given myself license to eat them at will. After all, they’re so delicious. And comforting. And affordable. And available. You get my drift. If ever we deserved to indulge in a potato fancy, it’s now!
Plus, it’s great to have potato in the fridge. We have to cook every night, and it goes with most everything. It’s great with a work-at-home lunch. And it can even be a dazzling little stand-in for boiled potatoes in a main-course niçoise salad.
It’s been so omnipresent in our kitchen these months that one day we’ll probably describe something that’s everywhere as “ubiquitous as potato salad in a pandemic.”
Herb-Happy Potato Salad
Potato salad is an ideal vehicle for a garden’s-worth of herbs, as in the Herb-Happy Potato above. With its vinaigrette dressing, this is the sole vegan entry in our bunch; it’s also gluten-free.
An old-fashioned one, such as Toni Tipton-Martin’s from her Jubilee cookbook, can take you all the way back to childhood. (Both are super-quick and easy to make.)
I love the Jubilee one because it’s rich in hard-boiled eggs, whose yolks blend lusciously into the mayo-based dressing, there’s a hint of sweet pickle relish and a nice celery crunch. If you’re going all-American classic with your July 4 menu, this is the one for you.
On the other hand, if you want to play it a little more exotic, consider a Japanese potato salad — we have two to choose from. One is from Sonoko Sakai’s Japanese Home Cooking (which we recently reviewed); the other is the one chef Justin Holt serves at his Dallas ramen hot-spot, Salaryman. (And that one sports a prize on top: halved ajitama marinated eggs — like the ones you find garnishing bowls of ramen.)
Each serving of Salaryman Potato salad is topped with half an ajitmama marinated egg.
Oh, man — I’m getting a starch high just revisiting them in my brain!
Finally, there is the one that predates the other four on Cooks Without Borders — the one we named Best Potato Salad Ever before we knew there’d be such heavy competition.
That’s Wylie holding a batch of it, before he and Thierry put me on potato salad time-out.
What makes it so good? It gets a luxurious richness from soft-boiled eggs, delightful tang from cornichons and shallots and lift from an array of herbs, all in the form of a New-Wave Gribiche.
I think any one of the fiHve would be a welcome guest at your picnic or party tomorrow. You can make them ahead, or not. Oh, and by the way, they’re all easy-going — in case you want to swap potato types, or swap shallots for scallions, and so forth. Whichever you choose, enjoy. I’ll be jealous.
Happy Fourth!
[RECIPE: Herb-Happy Potato Salad]
[RECIPE: Jubilee Country-Style Potato Salad]
[RECIPE: Salaryman Potato Salad]