Warm Potato Salad - Missy

I’m such a fan of potatoes y’all.

I’ll probably do several potato recipes from this book even though once again Kenji and I have fairly different aesthetics where this food is concerned. 

Back in the mashed potato section he stated his preference for soft, nearly liquidy, mash and I find myself strongly on the side of his then wife with airy fluffier texture being my thing. 

He really does seem to be fond of the goopy. 

Nevertheless I’ve been looking for a good warm vinegar potato salad recipe to hold the place of the usually hammy German one that I often see. 

What really caught my eye here was his solution for adhesion and texture. 

I love the way he tackles problems in this book and I think his mashing up of a few starchy potatoes into the vinaigrette is the most creative creamy solution that I have ever seen. 

You can sort of see that there are two types of potatoes in the above pictures. 

It’s a pound (ish) of fingerling (ish) with one large Yukon gold. 

Once they are boiled through (in heavily salted and vinegared water) a few pieces of the Yukon gold are added to the vinaigrette and mashed. 

This really did result in a creamy soupy and delicious sauce. I think his recipes shine in the sauces. 

There is a lot of texture here too. We have celery and capers and green onion (should have been shallot but the store was out) plus pickle relish. It felt a bit like a throwing every possible option at the wall list. 

I found it, despite all of those, maybe because  of all of those, to be only mid. 

I think there is too much going on here for not enough punch. 

I loved loved loved that potato mashed into the vinaigrette.

But I also kept going back to add more salt, pepper and sugar just to get some bite here. 

I think in the case of potatoes he’s looking for.a problem that I don’t need a solution for. 

I’ve never made a potato and felt the outside was overdone while the inside was under done. I’ve never struggled to get flavor into the potato. I’ve never fought with the starch the way he seems to have. 

I think his research here is fascinating and very solid. 

I just am not finding them supper applicable to my own experiences. 

I will definitely use things from this recipe again but it’s not the warm potato salad recipe I’m looking for.