Creative Potato Salad - June 2011 Daring Cook Challenge

Daring cooks were asked to be creative with their potato salad this month, by Jami Sorrento.

The demonstration of different potato salads and tips and ideas are here.

My family love a good potato salad, and normally when I mention the word potato salad, they go for the traditional version.  So I made one just like what I normally would make:

Potato Salad with Mayonnaise, Eggs, Bacon and Onions
6 Desiree Potatos, boiled, cooled in colander to reduce liquid, and peeled, cut in cubes
4 Eggs, hard boiled and cut in wedges
10 Capers, finely chopped
sea salt and cracked black pepper
2 stripes of bacon
1 small brown onion
4 tbsp mayonnaise (whole egg mayo from shop or home made)
1 tbsp Dijion mustard

This is a very simple salad, and a lot of Aussie families have their own version of this salad, especially with the back yard barbeque.
The best potato to use in this salad will actually be baby chap, but since I've got a lot of desiree on  hand.
When potatoes and eggs are cooled and cut, pan fry the bacon and onion till fragrant and brown, put on top of the potato and eggs, add salt and cracked black pepper, capers, and the mayo and mustart, stir through,

 add a bit of herbs, if I do it for a party for adults, I'd normally add dill, parsley and chive, but when serving at home, I know the children don't like a lot of herbs so I just added some chives.

Serve with roast leg of lamb.

The second salad I made was a couple of nights later, more fit for adults and more mediterranean flavour.

Pan Roasted Spicey Potato Salad with Garden Greens

For the spice mix for the potatoes, I used smoke paprika, nutmeg, cinnamon, dry herbs (parsley, oregano, thyme), salt and cracked black pepper, lemon zest, (I would have addedn cajun peppers but I had a very hot and spicey lunch and decided to leave the heat out).

Potatoes are skinned and cubed, steamed and dried.

Heat up some extra virgin olive oil and add in potato cubes, add spices and coat them well, set aside to cool.

The rest of the salad is endive leaves, a couple, 1 cubed lemonese cucumber, 3 small riped tomato, 1 small avocado, a couple baby carrots - blanched, feta cheese.

Salad dressing is vinegarette made of 1 tbsp lemon myer juice, 1.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, salt and cracked pepper and 1 tbsp maple syrup (or honey). 

Whisk very well until well combined and dressing look a bit pale yellow, smooth and milky look.  

Stir through.


We had aged scotch fillet for dinner with the salad, and garlic yoghurt sauce for the steak.