Hot Potato: Win at the Potato Game

With Fourth of July picnics and such, a short tutorial on potatoes should be in order. Even if the potato has been taken for granted, one might yet learn a new thing or two about this common vegetable.
Potato salad has assumed a fairly unglamorous role as the potentially boring standard at picnics; I blame the mass-produced, over-processed, preservative-laden stuff found in most large grocery stores. But a freshly-prepared potato salad can really hit the spot!

No, I won't go Martha Stewart on you and suggest that you harvest your potatoes that morning, although I might share that my potato plants are flourishing! They seem quite happy amongst the parsley, cabbage, and nasturtiums. I suspect the plants are benefitting from the composting and double-digging I did earlier in the year...

I've got several potato salad recipes in my "From the Land of Milk and Honey" cookbook; I've posted one of them on my website, for German Potato Salad, here. The recipe below veers away from the standard potato salad, which hardly needs a recipe. But consider a few pointers in preparing any potato salad: Prep the veggies a day early, if necessary, cooking potatoes ahead of time and allowing them to cool. But if onion is added to the mix, add it on serving day; the flavor will be much finer! Something happens to raw onion as it hangs out in the dressing; it gets stronger, in an unpleasant way.

As for cooking the potatoes, online recipe forums seem adrift with questions on the subject. While the oven or microwave might work well for baking potatoes, red potatoes (and similar varieties with lower starch content) are best steamed. For us at The New Deli, a pressure cooker does the job, as we can add just an inch or so of water; more flavors and nutrients are retained this way. If boiling the potatoes seems like an easier option, you can save the cooking water as a base for soups. In any case, remember that baking or microwaving red potatoes may prove futile. They seem to take forever! (Trust us- a few of us at the deli have tried.) If baking potatoes (Idaho, Russet, and the like) are on hand, they also work for potato salad, although they won't hold their shape as well.

In any case, have some great summer picnics!