Your Next Potato Salad Will Need Fried Potatoes
Roasting vegetables gives them a deeper, sweeter and more complex flavor, so I would like to see them in more salads. After all, there is no rule that vegetable salad should be fresh and raw. Instead of dried grated carrots, you can garnish the salad with lightly caramelized carrot coins, or replace the rubbery porcini mushrooms with meaty, fried quarters.
Potato salad isn’t made with raw potatoes, but it’s not a big culinary secret that chicken legs benefit from a little browning, and there’s no reason you should make a boiled potato salad.
Fried potatoes before tossing them (usually) with mayonnaise-based dressing will give the salad a firmer base. The fried potatoes give the dressing the leverage, offering a greater variety of textures and flavors in every bite. The potato becomes the protagonist, not just a carrier for mayonnaise, onions, and (if you’re lucky) bacon and / or cheese.
Like any salad, a good potato salad is a contrast. Pretty much any potato salad can be made with fried potatoes – just swap for boiled boy – but the best fried potato salad is high in acid, a few fresh vegetables (for texture), and a small amount of healthy herbs (especially dill).
Does my personal fried potato salad have blue cheese and bacon? Yes, because I love to have fun, but the bacon serves the purpose of the duel: the dressing uses both greasy and non-glazed chunks to give the whole bowl a smoky, indulgent look. I also added some shallots and radishes, but you can use whatever vegetables you like. Softly crispy asparagus would be nice.
Fried potato salad with bacon vinaigrette (for 2-4 people – increase if necessary)
Ingredients:
For the salad:
- 450 g fry potatoes, cut in half lengthwise
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon table salt
- 6 ounces bacon, preferably jaw bacon (aka guanchiale), chopped half-inch lard
- 1/2 glass of white wine
- 3-4 thin radishes, chopped (if you have large radishes, use three; if small, use four)
- Half large shallots (about 2 ounces, thinly sliced)
- 4 shallots, chopped, roughly divided into two stacks
- 30 grams blue cheese, divided into two servings
- 1 tablespoon (4-5 sprigs) chopped fresh dill, plus one or two more sprigs for garnish
- 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
For the bandage:
- 2 tablespoons bacon fat reserved (after bacon is cooked)
- 1 tablespoon bacon skillet wine mixture (after removing the frosting in the skillet in which you cooked the bacon)
- 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 1 whole garlic clove, peeled
- A pinch of salt
Cut the young of the year potatoes in half and drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sprinkle with one teaspoon of salt and stir again. Fry in the oven (or deep fat fryer) at 400 ℉ until the potatoes are tender and crisp around the edges (about half an hour for the oven or 15 minutes for the deep fat fryer), stirring halfway through. Remove from oven and set aside.
While the potatoes are roasting, cook the bacon and lard in a stainless steel skillet over medium or low heat, letting the fat drain slowly. When the bacon is crispy, remove it with a slotted spatula and pour the fat into a coffee cup. Deglaze the skillet with half a glass of wine, scrape off the browning with a wooden spoon and let reduce to a couple of tablespoons. Add two tablespoons bacon fat and one tablespoon chopped in a blender or cup large enough to hold the head of a hand blender. Add remaining dressing ingredients, stir until smooth, and refrigerate entire batch to cool and thicken.
Toss the bacon, radishes, shallots, lighter half green onions, half blue cheese, and a tablespoon of each herb over the potatoes, then drizzle with enough dressing to coat everything. You should stop adding the dressing just before it starts to collect at the bottom. I’ve used about 80% of mine. Garnish with the greener half of the scallions, the other half of the cheese, and the feathers of a couple of dill sprigs. You can also leave it in the refrigerator for a few hours to let the flavor (especially the garlic) develop and drain, and add all the finishing touches just before serving. The fried potato salad will stay “good” for at least three days, but I doubt it will last that long.