Erica De Mane

Baby Yukon Gold Potato Salad with Tarragon, White Wine, and Shallots

Recipes:

Baby Yukon Gold Salad with Tarragon, White Wine, and Shallots
Red Bliss Potato Salad with Anchovies and Celery Leaves
Creamer Potato Salad with String Beans, Basil, and Pine Nuts
Fingerling Potato Salad with Capers, Red Onion, and Rosemary
Baby Yukon Gold Potato Salad with Marjoram, Roasted Tomatoes, and Summer Garlic
Red Bliss Potato Salad with Pancetta and Purslane

Today I reaffirmed my love of my own potato salads by making another of my olive-oil-based ones, this one seasoned with just shallots and tarragon. I know it sounds haughty, but hardly anyone I know makes potato salads as good as mine. Did I say that? But I have worked out a simple fragrance-producing technique that’s open to all sorts of improvisational touches, and if I keep the ingredients down to a minimum, the results always seem to please me very much.

My technique turns out clean potato salads in the Mediterranean tradition. Wine, lemon, and extra-virgin olive oil are my base flavors, the ones that produce the salads’ fragrant underpinnings. I usually start by dressing warm potatoes with wine and giving them a toss. Then comes olive oil, and maybe some lemon. Then I move on to my improvisations, which can include garlic, all sorts of onion things, and herbs or greens. I may then include stronger touches, including anchovies, capers, or pancetta. But that’s about as complicated as I get. I like to taste the waxy little potatoes through my simple seasonings.

I have to admit I didn’t start out loving potato salads. Not until I began making them myself. I grew up on New York deli potato salads, usually with mayonnaise, sometimes with hard-boiled eggs too, and often with chopped pickles. They were mushy and mayonnaisy and seemed gross. Even the “German” versions were peculiar, if slightly better, with bacon and paprika, but they were usually way too vinegary for me.

Where were the potato salads of my dreams? I knew they were out there, but not until I picked up Hemingway’s A Movable Feast when I was in high school and read his description of the oil-soaked, dripping bowls of potato salad he’d wolfed down with cold beers at the Brasserie Lipp in Paris did I begin to feel I’d been really gypped. After that enlightening read I began researching the subject, primarily in French cookbooks (and in a few Italian ones too), and I found loads of recipes for boiled potatoes tossed with good olive oil, a shallot, a few herbs. That was the taste I had been looking for.

It’s funny, though, because I knew that somewhere in my taste memory this type of dish was familiar to me. Eventually I realized why. My grandmother had used to make potatoes this way all the time, serving them at room temperature, sometimes with onion or garlic, with bits of anchovy or capers, or with parsley, oregano, or basil, but since nobody ever referred to that as a salad it never occurred to me that the object of my desire had been staring me right in the face. What I was looking for was already mine. I just had to bring it back into my life. This revelation occurred many years ago, but these potato salads are still a huge favorite of mine, especially in the summer with all the just-dug little potatoes at the Greenmarket.

So now that I’ve come full circle and sorted it all out, I offer you a few of the potato salad improvisations I’ve been coming up with lately, all based on summer produce. Use my Baby Yukon Gold Salad with Tarragon, White Wine, and Shallots as a master recipe. All the subsequent recipes are just variations, using the same basic technique as the first one.

Baby Yukon Gold Potato Salad with Tarragon, White Wine, and Shallots

(All the recipes serve 4, or 5 as a side dish)

2 pounds small Yukon gold potatoes, cut in half lengthwise
Salt
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
A squeeze of fresh lemon juice
2 small shallots, very thinly sliced
Freshly ground black pepper
A few scrapings of nutmeg
10 good size tarragon sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped

The most important step in preparing any of these potato salads is the cooking of the potatoes. Put them in a medium-size pot and cover them with cool water about 2 inches above them. Add a generous sprinkling of salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat just slightly, and let the potatoes boil, uncovered, until they’re just tender when poked with a sharp knife. Try not to cook them any longer or their skins will start to fall off and the potatoes themselves will fall apart. I like them to retain a firm, waxy texture. They also look very pretty smooth, uncrumbling, and glistening with their dressing. Most small potatoes cut in half, like the kinds I suggest for these salads, take about 5 to 6 minutes of boiling, but check after 4 minutes. When they start to smell like potatoes, you know they’re almost there.

Drain the potatoes in a colander until fairly dry (without shaking them, since that can break them up), and transfer them to a large serving bowl. Pour on the white wine, and toss gently. Let the warm potatoes sit soaking up the wine for about 2 or 3 minutes (pour off any excess). Drizzle on the olive oil and the squeeze of lemon juice. Add the shallots, nutmeg, black pepper, and tarragon, and give them another gentle toss. Taste to see if they need more salt. Serve warm or at room temperature. This sort of potato salad is best made not too long before serving and not refrigerated. I love this tarragon-flavored salad served with grilled or roasted chicken (and the chicken maybe seasoned with a little mustard and a bit of tarragon or parsley).

Red Bliss Potato Salad with Anchovies and Celery Leaves

Cook two pounds of red bliss potatoes (or any other small red potatoes) as in the above recipe, and drain. Place them in a serving bowl and toss with a teaspoon of sherry wine vinegar, two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, four or five chopped anchovy fillets, one thinly sliced shallot, a handful of chopped celery leaves, and a few chopped thin, inner celery stalks. Season with a bit of cayenne or Aleppo pepper, and toss. You probably won’t need any extra salt. Serve warm or at room temperature. This salad is great alongside an oily fish. Try grilled sardines or mackerel or bluefish, possibly baked with chopped tomatoes and white wine.

Creamer Potato Salad with String Beans, Basil, and Pine Nuts

Cook two pounds of small creamer potatoes (or another small beige potato) as in the recipe at top, and drain. Place them in a serving bowl, and add a teaspoon of lemon juice, two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, a small, minced summer garlic clove, two chopped scallions, and a handful of blanched string beans. Season with a pinch of salt and black pepper, and toss gently. Add a handful of basil, cut into thin strips, and a scattering of toasted pine nuts. Toss again. Serve warm or at room temperature. The last time I made this I served it with tuna steaks, grilled rare, sliced, and dressed with lemon zest and olive oil.

Fingerling Potato Salad with Capers, Red Onion, and Rosemary