#171 beyond potato salad

from OTK Shelf Love

I adore potato salad, and I was surprised to see something that seemed so American to me in an Ottolenghi cookbook. But of course as I read, I realized this is actually inspired by Salad Olivieh, which a quick Google search tells me is Persian. Color me surprised, I usually associate Persian food with saffron, pomegranates, black lime powder, rice and the like - this dish seems a million miles away from that. The description also said this dish was “retro,” maybe it used to be big in the UK? Potato salad still has its place here, especially with barbecue or as a side to a sandwich.

Ottolenghi employs a trick I also use in my potato salad; using about a 1:3 ratio of mayonnaise to yogurt, which maintains the creaminess of the sauce, but makes it a lot lighter. The potatoes are mashed more than a typical American version, and mixed with grated eggs, then the mayo, yogurt and lemon mixture. The salad is topped with a delicious mix of pickles (I used homemade from Smitten Kitchen, which makes a hugeeee difference in my opinion), chopped herbs (I subbed parsley for the tarragon because I wasn’t feeling tarragon), olive oil, sesame seed, nigella, coriander seed and aleppo pepper. The toppings made the dish for sure, adding so much extra texture and flavor. I needed a bit of extra pickle on mine.

I still have my idea of what constitutes the perfect potato salad, and it includes chopped red onion, lots of yellow mustard, celery, and sweet relish (I am working on honing that recipe). I was still glad to try something different, and I loved this way of presenting the salad with the toppings in the middle. It took something that would otherwise be a bland-looking beige dish and actually made it pretty photogenic.