Curried Potato Salad with Cilantro and Ginger

A few weeks ago, while lunching outdoors in Berkeley on a shady patio, basking in the summery summertime, I was offered a bite of potato salad.

"Potato salad?" said the bite-offerer, descriptively.

"Um," I replied.

I paused. I'm not such a fan of potato salad, after all. I believe in the overcooking of all potatoes always forever, and potato salad potatoes are so frequently al dente. And then there's the mayonnaise thing. And the cold thing. And the lack of any hint of flavor drama.

And yet.

Maybe this was THE potato salad. Maybe this would be the moment at which the summertime picnics of my life would change course magically and irrevocably in a blissful epiphany of potato salad perfection. Maybe the secret ingredient was hidden inside this very forkful.

I forked.

I chewed.

I marveled at how very much this potato salad tasted exactly like every other potato salad I had ever tried in the history of summertime picnics.

Enough was enough. I was tired of being a passive potato salad bystander, sitting wistfully on the sidelines of summertime picnic history. It was time to act. It was time to make this.

It is in many ways, as you will see, the anti-potato salad potato salad. No mayonnaise. No white potatoes. Bursting with flavor. And best of all, delightfully overcooked.


Ingredients
1.25 lbs yellow or purple potatoes
Rounded 1/2 tsp black or yellow mustard seeds, lightly toasted in a pan until fragrant (about 30 seconds)
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
Scant 1 tsp good quality curry powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
Handful cilantro, chopped (about 2 1/2 tbsp)
Small handful baby arugula, chopped
2-3 scallions, sliced

Bring a pot of water to boil for the potatoes, then boil 15-25 minutes until the skins split and the potatoes are very tender (i.e., delightfully overcooked). Drain, rinse with cold water or an ice bath to cool, and peel (the skins should pull off easily).

Whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, curry powder, ginger, and salt. Put the peeled potatoes in a bowl and break apart into bite-sized pieces with a fork, then drizzle with the curry mixture and toss to coat evenly. Sprinkle in the mustard seeds, cilantro, arugula, and scallions, tossing gently to mix evenly. Adjust seasonings to taste (the spice of the curry, tang of the vinegar, and cilantro-y-ness of the cilantro should balance each other out -- if one seems to be missing from the flavor, add a bit more. If the flavor just seems muted overall and you want to make it louder, sprinkle in a bit more salt).

Cover the bowl and leave in the fridge to chill while the flavors blend until you're ready to eat.

Serves 3-4.

Roasted Rosemary Potatoes with Goat Cheese and Sage

Autumn has arrived, with crisp mornings and reddening leaves. Let the roasting begin.

Ingredients

Purple or yellow potatoes, cut in half (if small, you can leave them whole; if large, you can cut into thirds or fourths if you want to reduce cooking time)

Olive oil

Fresh rosemary and/or sage

A little goat cheese or feta, for crumbling over the top

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Toss the potatoes with a generous glug of olive oil and stir to coat evenly. Set a piece of tinfoil, shiny side up, on a baking sheet and brush the foil lightly with olive oil. Pour the potatoes onto the foil, scatter liberally with rosemary and sage leaves, and then pull the edges of the foil inward to form a partially-closed container. (You can adjust the openness of the foil as you roast them—if they start to dry out, close the foil more to retain more moisture. If liquid starts to collect at the bottom, pull the edges outward to let it evaporate.)

Roast the potatoes until browned on the outside and soft on the inside, stirring every 15 minutes or so to prevent them from sticking (as a point of reference, purple potatoes cut into approximately 1" chunks take around 45-60 minutes). You want these a little softer than you'd want a baking potato to bring out the creaminess—the potato should smoosh a bit when you pinch it gently.

Serve hot, topped with crumbled feta or goat cheese. Pairs well with braised broccolini and roasted carrots.

Roasted Rosemary Potatoes with Caramelized Onion

This is really, really good, and goes very well with lamb. It probably goes with other things, too, but right now all I can think about is lamb and rosemary potatoes. And lamb. And rosemary potatoes. I may be stuck in a loop....

Ingredients
Olive oil
1.5 lbs smallish yellow or purple potatoes, halved
1/2 yellow onion, sliced into half rings
1 tbsp or so chopped green garlic (or sub 1 large clove garlic, pressed)
Needles from 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, separated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Toss ingredients together in a nonstick roasting pan (big enough so that the potatoes are about 2 layers deep). Roast in the oven for 45-60 minutes until potatoes are well-browned and soft when poked with a fork, turning every 15 minutes or so. (If after about half an hour, the pan is still wet at the bottom, it means the potatoes are clustered too close together -- try spreading them out a bit more to let them brown. If the potatoes start to dry out instead, try clustering them closer, or cover the pan with some aluminum foil.)

Sprinkle with salt and black pepper.

Serves 2.

Sorrel Soup

Spring arrived in our CSA box last week in the form of sorrel, which is apparently the gastronomic equivalent of a robin. When you acquire sorrel, you are to make sorrel soup, just as when you see a robin, you are to shout "Hey! The first robin of spring!" Now usually, when I shout about the first robin of spring, my husband smugly informs me that he saw a robin yesterday, to which I smugly reply that I actually saw a robin two weeks ago, and so begins the first faux-argument of spring. In contrast, the sorrel soup produced murmurs of contentment on both sides, and no season-specific altercation. I'm not saying I don't like robins, but if I had to vote in a bird vs. plant run-off for most beloved springtime indicator, I think I would pick the leafy green one.

Regardless of your relative preference for sorrel versus robins, here is what you should do with the former, adapted from this recipe.



Ingredients
1 tbsp pasture butter

1 tbsp olive oil
2 large-ish red spring onions, halves lengthwise and sliced (white/red part only; about 1 cup)
1-2 stalks green garlic, chopped (2-3 tbsp)
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
2 large yellow potatoes, peeled, halved, and sliced
3 cups chicken broth
2-3 big handfuls spinach, briefly steamed or blanched, drained, and chopped
1 bunch sorrel, sliced
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Splash cream

Heat the butter and olive oil in a pot over medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the spring onion and saute until soft, then add the garlic and herbs and saute for a minute more.

Next, add the potatoes and stir to coat with the onion and garlic mixture. Saute for 3-4 minutes, then add the broth, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about half an hour, until potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile, put the sorrel in a Cuisinart and blend until finely chopped.

When the potatoes are soft, remove the bay leaf and thyme stems. Stir in the spinach and then use a hand blender to puree the soup (or pour the soup into a regular blender to puree, which may be easier to do in small batches). Add salt and a little freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Just before serving, stir in the sorrel and a splash of cream (you want to do this moments before you bring the soup to the table, since sorrel turns grayish green as it cooks and after a few minutes your soup will lose some of its vivid green color. The spinach helps with this, and so does adding the sorrel raw right at the end, but it will still be prettier if you serve it sooner).

Ladle into bowls, and serve with some crusty multigrain brain and aged gouda.

Serves 3-4.

The Pizza Chronicles, Continued: Potato Pizza and A Glimpse of Crust Perfection

Potato pizza has long been a (rare but beloved) favorite of mine, and we had a particularly delectable version at Pizzaiolo in Oakland recently enough that it's been on my mind. That one came with an egg on top, which is the most amazing thing ever and which I think is relatively common in Italy and Australia but tragically uncommon here. Clearly, our next pizza attempt had to involve an egg. And potatoes. And something to give the crust a bit of flair.


Ingredients
Crust (adapted from the NYTimes recipe):
1 tsp dry active yeast
1/2 cup warm water (about 110 degrees F)
1/4 tsp sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
5/8 cups stone-ground whole wheat bread flour
3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp plus one pinch salt
3 pinches chopped fresh rosemary leaves (2-3 sprigs)
2 pinches lemon zest (grated on a microplane, else very finely minced)
Coarsely-ground cornmeal
Olive oil for brushing on the crust at the end

Top:
1 clove garlic, pressed or minced
Cheese, ideally from pastured cows (e.g., jack and parmesan, or goat gouda might work well here)
3 medium-sized red, white, purple, and/or yellow potatoes
1/2 red onion, sliced
Leaves from 1 sprig of rosemary (left whole)
1 egg, from a pastured chicken

Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, add the sugar, and stir gently. Let sit 3-8 minutes until it looks a little foamy. Add the olive oil.

Combine the wheat flour, white flour, salt, minced rosemary, and lemon zest in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse a few times to mix. With the machine running, slowly add the yeast mixture in through the top, and let it keep mixing until the dough forms a ball.

Lightly sprinkle a wooden cutting board or other flat surface with flour. Dampen your hands with a little water, then remove the dough from the food processor. Knead on the cutting board for 3-4 minutes, sprinkling more flour if necessary (you want the dough to be smooth and not sticky -- a little tacky is fine, and you want it to stick to itself when you fold it over, but it shouldn't stick to your hands). Form the dough into a ball.

Lightly grease a bowl with olive oil. Place the ball of dough in the bowl so that a smooth, round side faces down, then turn over so that this side is up (you want the top to be smooth for the dough to rise properly). Cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for 80-90 minutes until doubled in size. (An ideal rising temperature is around 80 degrees. If your house is on the coolish side, turn the oven on for literally just 2-3 seconds after you hear the burner come on, then leave the bowl in the slightly warmed oven.)

Meanwhile, gently boil the potatoes in a small pot until just tender (about 10-20 minutes, depending on their size). Drain, run under cold water to cool slightly, and slice.

Saute onion over medium-low heat until soft. Set aside.

When the dough is ready, preheat oven to 450 degrees. Brush the flour off your cutting board and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Take the dough out of the bowl and gently form a ball, then place on the cutting board and begin gently pressing and stretching it outward to form a flat pancake. You want to end up with a flat disc that's about 12" in diameter (the outside crust should not be raised or pinched or anything -- the whole thing is flat).

Rub the dough with the minced garlic, then sprinkle with enough grated cheese to lightly cover everything but a ring around the outside. (If you're using parmesan, you might grate a little into the outside crust as well).

Lightly oil a pizza pan or baking pan and sprinkle with cornmeal. Gently transfer the pizza to the pan, using your hands or a spatula. Next, arrange the potato slices in concentric circles on top of the pizza, then sprinkle with the onion and top with the rosemary leaves. Make sure the center of the pizza has a flat spot (potato slices are fine, just be sure they're not overlapping here), and carefully crack the egg onto the middle of the pizza.

Bake in the oven on the middle rack for 10-15 minutes, until crust starts to turn golden and egg white is white. 

Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and brush the crust with a little olive oil (you can add a small pinch of lemon zest to the olive oil if you love lemon zest -- this will make the crust taste delectably close to a lemon bar -- or a little minced garlic). Slice creatively to avoid breaking the yolk (think parallelograms), and serve.

Serves 2 with something leafy and green on the side.

Good enough to dream about. Not that I necessarily did. But if one were prone to dreaming about food, one might select, as a centrally featured topic one night, this pizza.

Or, you know, just eat it.

On the Grill: Roasted Potatoes and Summer Squash

Found at Trader Joe's: Local tri-color potatoes
Found at the Coop: A panoply of summer squash, in season and on sale (zucchini and yellow, but also gray, pattypan, and a round, zucchini-like hybrid apparently called eight ball squash), portobello mushrooms, fresh garlic*

*Apparently, garlic comes from a plant. This may not have occurred to you, if, like me, you had never actually seen, felt, or tasted garlic that wasn't at least a week old. That hard, papery, tough wrapper was once soft and translucent and plantlike, almost moist, and the cloves inside were so fresh that the juice splattered when you pressed them. They taste better, too (garlicky in a crisp, clean kind of way, and less strong than their aged counterparts). Worth finding at a coop or farmer's market.

Ingredients
Assorted summer squash, cut lengthwise (for oblong squashes, like zucchini) or crosswise (for round squashes, like pattypan or eight ball) into half-inch thick slices. Try to avoid the smallest pattypans, which might be easy to lose in the grill.
Portobello mushrooms, stemmed and left whole, or any other vegetable that strikes your grilling fancy
2 cloves garlic, peeled
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

Assorted small to medium potatoes (yellow, red, and/or purple), whole if small and halved if medium
5-6 more garlic cloves, not peeled
Sprigs of fresh herbs (e.g., oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary)

A little meat, as a side dish rather than the main course (e.g., local lamb andouille sausages)

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add potatoes, and boil until just soft (a fork should go in fairly easily, but they shouldn't be mushy). Drain in a colander, rinse briefly with cool water, and leave in sink to dry off.

Press 2 cloves of garlic into a small bowl and mix with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Brush lightly onto summer squash and mushrooms, and set aside. (If you have fresh thyme, you might chop some and rub it onto the mushrooms with some salt and pepper.)

Preheat the grill.

Brush a large piece of foil with a little olive oil, pour the potatoes onto it, and then brush the rest of them with a little more olive oil (or toss them with olive oil in a separate bowl, depending on the lengths you will go to in order to avoid having to clean an extra dish). Add the unpeeled garlic cloves and sprigs of herbs, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and close up the foil.

Set the potatoes on the grill for 10-2o minutes, depending on how much time you have and how roasty-on-the-outside and soft-on-the-inside you like them to be. Grill the vegetables and the sausages, and serve. (Note that you can eat the garlic cloves -- they will be all sweet and mushy and should come right out of their skin with a knife and fork -- and the herbs, for that matter.)


If you cook extra potatoes and veggies, lunch the next day is easy:
Heat the potatoes on a plate in the microwave for a minute or two, sprinkle with a little crumbled feta or cheddar, and heat a little more. Serve with leftover grilled summer squash (cold or also heated).