Potato Salad - Retro Food For Modern Times

27
Oct
2024

Feb 2004 – From the Garden

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Australian Table, Chicken, Potato, Potato Salad, Scallops, Seafood

Hello dear readers! I was updating the index for the Twenty Years Ago Today posts this week and I realised I had not actually posted this one from way back in February! Given that today’s post was just a little teaser for Murder is Announced which will be released on Tuesday, I thought why not post this today so you also get some real content. Enjoy!

Hello, retro food lovers! Buckle up for a delicious journey back in time! Today, we’re using the magic of Australian Table magazine to teleport ourselves to February 2004, and build a menu that celebrates the vibrant bounty of the garden. Talk about perfect timing, with our own gardens bursting at the seams right now! But before we whip up some culinary magic, let’s take a nostalgic stroll down memory lane and see what was buzzing in pop culture back then.

First up, music: Australia was rocking out to Shannon Noll’s powerful cover of the Moving Pictures classic “What about Me?”. Fun fact, this very song just gave me some serious bragging rights in a pub quiz! So, while it might have retired from the charts, it’s clearly not forgotten.

Now, onto the literary world: can you guess the top-selling book of the first half of February 2004? Drumroll please… yep, you guessed it, it was the phenomenon that was The Da Vinci Code. And if you think its grip on pop culture was about to loosen anytime soon, think again! Speaking of cultural giants, Jesus himself made a big splash on the big screen, with The Passion of the Christ becoming the highest-grossing film of the month. So, get ready for a menu that’s not only fresh and seasonal, but also infused with a touch of early 2004 nostalgia.

Fun Fact From Australian Table February 2004

I found this little timeline of how food evolved in Australia over the last 70 years fascinating I particularly liked it that they did this by looking at old magazines. Hmm…now what does that remind me of?

Now, let’s take a look at our menu.

The Menu – February 2004

Summer Cocktail

Garden ingredient : Mint

This was a take on a Classic Pimms Punch combining gingerale, lemonade, Pimms, cucumber, mint and orange. Many of these recipes often also contain strawberries which we also have growing but this one didn’t. It was however delicious. This was summer in a glass!

Summer Cocktail Recipe

Seared Scallop Salad with Macadamia and Coriander Pesto

Garden Ingredients, Mint, Lime

While I am not a huge scallop fan this was delicious! Next time I make it I would use prawns. Confession: I took some liberties with the salad, swapping out the red capsicum and beansprouts. I can’t eat red capsicum and I could only find huge bags of beansprouts at the greengrocer. Bean sprouts aren’t bad, but buying a giant bag just for a few felt wasteful! I opted for cherry tomatoes (home grown) and red onion instead. This dish is colourful and pretty and the macadamia and coriander pesto is divine!

Seared Scallop Salad with Macadamia and Coriander Pesto

Rosemary and Lemon Chicken with Mint Dressing

Garden Ingredients: Rosemary, Lemon, Mint

This was a great quick and easy midweek meal. Nothing elaborate but relatively quick and tasty.

Rosemary and Lemon Chicken with Mint Dressing – Recipe

Potato Salad with Garlic and Caper Mayonnaise

Garden Ingredients: Lemon, Parsley

I love potato salad. Roseanne Cash Potato Salad remains one of my favourites but the Garlic and Caper Mayo on this one was superb!

Potato Salad with Garlic and Caper Mayonnaise – Recipe

Angel Cheesecake

Garden Ingredients: Limes

I am not 100% sure why this is called an Angel Cheesecake. Maybe because there are egg whites in the filling to make it lighter? Maybe because the combination of lime and passionfruit is divine?

We have a passionfruit vine in the garden but it is only tiny so has not had any fruit on it yet. I am looking forward to making this again with some homegrown passionfruit sometime in the future!

Angel Cheesecake – Recipe

My Nigella Moment – Barbecued Green Rice

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share.

This month I chose a recipe that used a technique that was new to me. I have never thought of putting rice on the bbq. But I made the sushi with crispy rice out of the book Eat California by Vivian Lui (highly recommended BTW) and I loved it. And this gave me the same vibes. It was really tasty and I did get the crispy rice I was after but this recipe really needed some salt to make it a 10/10 instead of an 8/10! We also do not have a bbq at the moment so I made this in a pan on the stove.

Barbecued Green Rice Recipe

I really enjoyed this month, it just felt very lemon and mint-heavy in terms of garden produce! There were some absolute winners in the taste department too – the pesto, the potato salad, the cheesecake, and the rice are things that will become part of my repertoire!

03
Apr
2019

Use By: Pesto Potato Salad

categories: 1980's Food, Pesto, Potato Salad, Use By

What did people eat before the pesto boom of the ’80’s? I love pesto and eat it by the bucketful but I always seem to end up with a bit left in the jar that is not enough for a batch of pasta. Well, this Pesto Potato Salad is one of my favourite ways of using up that annoying last bit. It’s also good for using up some of those veggies you have sitting in the bottom of your fridge.

I used radishes, edamame and red onion in mine. You could use beans, peas, tomatoes, zucchini whatever you have in the house or your favourite veggies.

The idea behind this is that you use what is left in the jar to make the dressing. Add some oil and lemon juice into your jar of pesto, close it up tight and give it a good shake.

Taste – add salt, pepper, some chilli flakes, maybe a little more garlic if you like. I added some extra parmesan cheese to really ramp up some of those pesto flavours.

Shake again and pour over freshly boiled potatoes while they are still warm. This will allow the flavour to really infuse into the potatoes as they cool. Cos no one likes a bland potato salad!

You can make it up to this point in the morning or even the day before you are planning to have the salad. Just pop the potatoes and dressing into the fridge until you are almost ready to serve.

At that time, remove from the fridge, stir through the rest of your veggies, throw in some toasted pine nuts and, some finely chopped basil leaves (I didn’t have basil and felt it would be against the spirit of a Use By Post to buy some just for the Pesto Potato Salad so mine is garnished with chives).

This salad is great with BBQ’s, seafood, chicken, anywhere you would have regular potato salad but maybe want to shake things up a bit. I could eat potato salad every day of the week so something a bit different from the classic mayo-based salad (but for a great one of them, see here) makes a refreshing change.

Here’s the recipe.

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Pesto Potato Salad

Print Recipe

A delicious and versatile potato salad

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

4 medium potatoes, diced
1/2 cup edamame
1/2 red onion, diced
4 radishes, sliced
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese
Basil leaves, chives to garnish
Dressing!
1 jar of bought pesto with around 1 tbsp of pesto left in the bottom
3 tbsp olive oil
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 clove of finely chopped garlic (optional)
A sprinkle of chilli flakes (optional)
Salt and Pepper to Taste

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Dressing!
Place all the ingredients in the jar of pesto, seal and shake well until mixed.
Boil the potatoes until just tender
Pour the dressing over the top.
Just before serving mix through the remaining vegetables and pine nuts.
Top with the herbs.
Enjoy!

Notes

Feel free to add whatever cooked or raw vegetables you have into this salad!

Pesto, may well be the quiche of the ’80’s but it also makes a damn fine potato salad!

Have a great week!

10
Mar
2018

Rosanne Cash’s Potato Salad – Repost from October 2018

categories: Potato Salad, United States of America

Regular readers will know what a fan I am of the serendipitous find. So, imagine my joy when, in the middle of writing the post on Johnny Cash’s Chili, sorting through a huge pile of recipes I had collected over the last year or so, I found a recipe from his daughter Rosanne Cash for Potato Salad.

I felt that finding it was either a sign from the universe to make some potato salad or that the Cash family were stalking me in a really weird way.

I decided to make potato salad.

Have I ever told you how much I love potato salad?

Like LOVE it. 😍

I have CRIED when I have tasted a potato salad that looked gorgeous only to find the potato was half raw. Or the dressing was watery

That’s how much I love potato salad.

And I have incredibly high standards. So far in my life, the only ‘tatie salad that even comes close to my mum’s is my best friend Monica’s. It’s one of the reasons I adore her.

Maybe THAT’s how much I love potato salad…

Good potato salad? Friend. For. Life.

Bad potato salad? Never darken my door again!

And Rosanne Cash’s had all the hallmarks of being a GOOD potato salad. Or the one. Which is the inclusion . of hard-boiled eggs. Seriously. Mum’s potato salad has them. Monica’s potato salad has them. And this one has them. And, spoiler alert. We are now talking my top-three potato salads.

Because Rosanne Cash’s potato salad is AWESOME.

The only problem with the Rosanne Cash Potato Salad?

There was not enough of it!

Basic user error. Before making anything check your ingredients. ALWAYS check your ingredients. All of them. Even the ones where you think “Oh I always have plenty of that / those / them”

Especially those ones. Otherwise, you will go to the shops to buy celery and pickles. And come home to discover you only have three tiny potatoes. But it’s getting late and if you want to be eating this delicious sounding potato salad any time before midnight then you don’t have time to go all the way back to the store to buy more potatoes.

So…a tiny potato salad it was…

You can also do the thing….cos here’s the recipe. Just make sure you have potatoes a plenty!

Rosanne Cash’s Potato Salad

And here is he of the chilli and she of the potato salad way back in 1956!

Have a great week!

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12
Jun
2015

Brazo Di Gitano – The Gypsy’s Arm

categories: Avocado, Olives, Potato, Potato Salad, Potato Salad Roll, Spain, Tuna

Cross my palm with silver and I will tell you tales of magic and wonder. Or just keep reading ‘cos I cooked something really good!

I see, in your future a little taste of Spain….because today in a final piece of birthday indulgence, I bring to you The Gypsy’s Arm…aka The Brazo Di Gitano.

And what you may ask is the Brazo Di Gitano? Well remember back at Christmas when my family took against me for bringing a Potato Salad Roll to our Christmas festivities? I felt then that despite their negativity it was my duty to bring the PSR to the world. This did not start well. My St Patrick’s Day Corned Beef PSR was an mitigated disaster. But redemption is at hand with The Gypsy’s Arm.

I LOVE this recipe. And yes, I am yelling at you because it’s that good. It’s like someone took every lovely taste of Spain and mixed it together and then wrapped it up in potato. And mayo.

Why a Gypsy’s Arm? I have no idea. But when something tastes this good why question it? I found the original version of this recipe in Anya Von Bremzen’s The New Spanish Table which I thought was an amazing book even before I discovered it had a potato salad roll.

So what’s so good about this recipe? Well, potatoes and mayo…

But also tuna, tomatoes, olives, capers, red onions and anchovies. And to make things even better, I added some avocado to mine, hence the greenish tinge.

The flavours of this dish took me right back to a trip to Barcelona a few years ago. It really is Spain on a plate. And so easy.

Make your mashed potato and spread out on a tray.

I left mine a bit chunky so it was still a bit like a regular potato salad. Then put your tuna filling on top. Spread to the edges.

Then, shake, rattle and roll!!!

Don’t worry if it cracks a little, or a lot, you can just press it together. Plus you will shortly be adding your mayo (and avocado topping) so small cracks won’t matter.

Then, channel your inner Gaudi and decorate the outside of roll as you see fit.

Trim the edges so you have a nice clean line before serving.

Eat and transport yourself back to the streets of Barcelona…

Enjoy!

Have a great week! And there are only 2 days to go for the Birthday giveaway. Subscribe or get one of your friends to subscribe to win a fabulous vintage cookbook. Prize drawn on Monday!

Recipe Card

[yumprint-recipe id=’30’] Signature 1

13
Mar
2015

When Irish Eyes Aren’t Smiling

categories: Ireland, Potato Salad

I wanted to make something really amazing for St Patrick’s Day and when I say something really amazing what I mean is an Irish Potato Salad Roll. And you all thought I was joking when I said I was going to make the PSR into a thing!!!

So, I found this recipe for an Irish Potato Salad – this baby has potatoes, cabbage and corned beef. Faith and Begorrah, could you get more stereotypically Irish?

I was so excited I played some Mumford and Sons and did a little impromptu Riverdance around the dining room.

Irish Potato Salad Roll here I come!!!!

The Luck of The Irish Part 1

The first problem arrived when I could not find celery seed in either of my two local supermarkets. Minor Detail. I have celery salt. And celery. How much flavour is the seed going to add anyway?

The Luck of The Irish Part 2

I”m just going to come out and say it. Corned beef is disgusting. Maybe I bought the wrong sort of stuff but it said Corned Beef on the tin:

The recipe said to cube it, so I assumed it was going to be kind of like Spam i.e. able to be cubed. What I did not expect was this disgusting gelatinous fatty mush which almost made me gag. There were also big chunks of fat left in the bottom of the can.

And it smelt really bad.

My original plan was to cook the corned beef, onion and cabbage together, then make a kind of chunky mash with the potatoes, mayo and pickle and swiss roll them together and serve it cold.

Having seen the corned beef cold put me right off though so that plan went out the window. Mine was going to be a warm salad.

The Luck of The Irish Part 3

So, I started cooking my corned beef and onion and….oh, god, this bit did actually make me gag. There was something weird in the meat. Initially I thought it was one of those lumps of fat. Except it didn’t melt.

It looked like a piece of skin. This picture does not even convey the disgustingness of this lump of….whatever the fuck it was…

So, whilst I was dry heaving, the corned beef started to stick to the pan. So I thought it might be a good idea to throw a glass of wine in there to deglaze the plan. Because wine makes anything better right?

Wrong. This is how doomed this dish was, Adding the wine just made a very fatty, milky, winey, even more stinky liquid rise to the top. This was so incredibly gross it’s kind of making me throw up a little in my mouth just thinking about it.

The Luck of The Irish Part 4

In the end I plated it up by making some chips with the potatoes and making a stack. Potato, corned beef, potato, mayo and chives, potato, corned beef, mayo and pickles.

The Luck of The Irish Part 5

If this was a Hollywood version or even a reality tv show, right about now, I’d saying something along the lines of “You know, when I plated this up, despite all the set backs, despite all the trials and tribulations, this tasted fantastic….best thing I’ve ever eaten”.

It was nothing like that.

It definitely wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. Then again, I ate bugs in Cambodia. It was the definitely worst thing I’ve eaten this year. And this is the gift that keeps on giving, not only did it leave a layer of grease in my mouth that survived at least two tooth brushings but even though I had the extractor fan on for the longest time, the day after I made this, there was still a fug of corned beef and cabbage through my entire house.

Hmm…maybe this really did need the celery seed.

Epic fail.

Sorry people of Ireland. I tried.

And my head told my heart
“Let love grow”
But my heart told my head
“This time no, This time no

But never fear…just like a benevolent Colin Fassnidge on My Kitchen Rules, I’m giving myself a redemption round.

And this time, it’s something not even I can fuck up. Roll out the barrel of Jameson’s…next up…we’re having an Irish inspired cocktail. Please let it be fabulous…or you know…just better than this. Otherwise, I might have to strategically vote myself out….

How do you plan to celebrate St Patrick’s Day? If at all?

What’s the worst thing you’ve eaten this year? Ever?

What are your thoughts on strategic voting – MKR or anywhere

Have a great week!

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Category: Potato Salad

Fun Fact From Australian Table February 2004

The Menu – February 2004

Summer Cocktail

Summer Cocktail Recipe

Seared Scallop Salad with Macadamia and Coriander Pesto

Seared Scallop Salad with Macadamia and Coriander Pesto

Rosemary and Lemon Chicken with Mint Dressing

Rosemary and Lemon Chicken with Mint Dressing – Recipe

Potato Salad with Garlic and Caper Mayonnaise

Potato Salad with Garlic and Caper Mayonnaise – Recipe

Angel Cheesecake

Angel Cheesecake – Recipe

My Nigella Moment – Barbecued Green Rice

Barbecued Green Rice Recipe

Pesto Potato Salad

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Related articlesPotato Salads for Summer

The Luck of The Irish Part 1

The Luck of The Irish Part 2

The Luck of The Irish Part 3

The Luck of The Irish Part 4

The Luck of The Irish Part 5

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Related articles Potato Salads for Summer