Friday, May 1, 2009

Not Your Usual Suspect Potato Salad

It's spring and almost summer, and that brings all kinds of fabulous fresh foods at the market.

Did I mention that spring is my favorite season

It is, and not just because of all those great fresh fruits and veggies, but also because I can finally hit the beach after that long cold boring winter.

Let me get back on track, I'm here to talk about food, not the beach. I'm here to talk about this:




This is a potato salad, but it instead of mayo you drizzle olive oil on it. The sharpness and crunchiness of the onions contrasts beautifully with the smoother milder flavor of the boiled potatoes. The tomatoes, fresh basil, and olive oil round out the rest of the flavors for a refreshing fabulous salad. And the colors are beautiful. Make this for your mom and she'll start to wonder if you were abducted by aliens.

It's so easy to make and its great for lunch, or a picnic on the beach. And it only takes 5 ingredients plus some salt and pepper.


2 medium Tomatoes
6 medium Red Potatoes
1/2 Red Onion
2 or 3 pieces Fresh Basil
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil

Start by cleaning and then cutting your potatoes into manageable sized pieces. Cut them in half and then quarters or sixths, depending on how big they are to start with.


Drop them into a stock pot and cover with water. Add about a half a teaspoon of salt. Turn the pot on med high and boil until tender. I really don't know how long that is because it depends on the size of the pieces. Check them after about 5 minutes with a fork and that will give you an idea of how much longer they need. If it is easy to stick a fork in them, then they are tender, if not keep cooking.

Meanwhile you can cut the onions and tomatoes and the basil. There is a great video on food network on some
basic knife skills. Alton over at Good Eats demonstrates about half way through the video how to chop your basil. He even shows you how to pare, slice and chop a red onion at the end of the video. You'll notice he uses a paring knife and a chef knife. I did all my cutting with the chef knife pictured above. His entire episode on knives was great and I highly recommend it.





So I sliced the onions into long slices and I cut the tomatoes into about eight slices each and then cut those in half so they would be closer to bite sized. I sliced the basil like Alton demonstrated, and then chopped the slices to make them smaller.

If you don't want to wait for your potatoes to cool, you can drain the hot water in the sink carefully and then fill the pot again with cold water to speed the cooling process. They don't have to be really cool, you just need to be able to handle them comfortably.

Once the potatoes are cool, transfer them to a large bowl. Next I dropped in the tomatoes. See how boring this salad looks without the onions and basil.



Then add the onions and basil. Add a liberal amount of salt and some pepper. This is ultimately up to you, but I feel like it needs a lot of salt. Gently toss the the ingredients together and you could taste the corner of a potato to test the seasoning. Drizzle with olive oil, I used about a quarter cup. Use enough so that when you gently toss the salad again, everything is coated. I used a big plastic bowl with a lid. I popped on the lid and gently shook/rolled the ingredients around.

I cooled the potatoes enough when I made it so I could serve it right away by letting the sink run for about 2 minutes with cool water. But I think this salad tastes much better if you let it sit in the fridge overnight. The flavors all seem to incorporate.

No comments:

Post a Comment