Old-Fashioned Potato Salad

This potato salad is the epitome of what a potato salad should be. It's that classic, all-American, slightly Miracle-Whip mayonnaise tasting potato salad. Yet, oh so much better! It's got a subtle tang, richness from smashed egg yolks, a slight bite and texture from chopped red onions and sweet pickles. And what's completely crazy about it all is that I don't like sweet pickles, and frankly, I don't like Miracle-Whip's flavor either {sorry Miracle-Whip lovers out there}. But for some reason this recipe has the right balance of everything and I loved it so much I could probably polish off the whole bowl.
Thing is - there actually isn't any Mircale-Whip in this potato salad, but I reference it because to me using that brand of mayonnaise yields a sweeter than I prefer dressing. I'm a Hellmann's {Best Foods} girl all the way. So when I took a look at the ingredient list for this salad and saw it included a bit of sugar in the dressing and sweet pickles to boot, I figured I probably wouldn't be crazy about it.
But the photo that accompanied the recipe in a recent issue of Bon Appetit sold me on making it anyway. If you click over and look at that photo I think you'll have to agree. Uh-huh. Told you. 

I love this recipe so much that I've made it three times this Summer already. It's received rave reviews and many requests for seconds each time. I especially love that it doesn't involve any hard to find, exotic ingredients, and it doesn't require hours of preparation. I'm also assuming it would taste great days after it's made, but I can't say for sure because we've never had enough leftover to test it.
The first time I tried the recipe I tweaked it a bit based on what I had available at the time, and I'll share those changes with you in case you find yourself in a similar situation...or simply want to try a variation.
I had a couple bags of those itty bitty, multicolor potatoes - red-skinned, yellow, and purple potatoes to be exact. The photo above doesn't show the purple ones because I added them in at the end for fear they would dye the whole salad purple! But they didn't. So I could have added them in with the rest. In the finished salad you can see a few flecks of the purple ones in there...it was pretty cool having purple potato salad.
Because the potatoes were so little I didn't follow the recipe instructions, which called for peeling the potatoes before boiling them. That would have been a nightmare! Instead I boiled them with the skins on, then cooled them enough so I could handle them, and rubbed off the skins, which fell off easily after boiling. I would say you could use either method, but for someone like myself who happens to hate peeling potatoes, the rubbing method worked well for me.

What makes the dressing for this potato salad so darn good is the addition of sweet pickle juice. The recipe also instructs to garnish the finished salad with slices of sweet pickle. But since I don't particularly care for sweet pickles, I was light-handed with them the first time around. However, after deciding that they were quite alright in this recipe I added in some chopped pickles for the subsequent versions - which was quite delicious. Any way you decide to make this I'm certain you won't be disappointed, and either will your guests!
A few other Summer Sides I love - Dilled Potato & Pickled Cucumber Salad | Citrus Rice Salad | Macaroni Salad | Roasted Corn & Edamame Succotash 

Colcannon

Last week I posted a round-up featuring the Irish recipes I've shared here over the years. While most of them have been my adaptations of the classics, versus passed down family recipes - many of them would have been welcome additions to our St. Patrick's Day dinners growing up. This recipe, however, would not have been received so gladly.
You see, I come from a family of mashed potato purists - and I can guarantee you that adding anything to plain ole' mashed potatoes, other than the basic additions {butter, milk and salt} - would not be welcomed {I think someone even tried that once and it didn't go over well}.
But now - I'm all grown up...I have a family of my own. And if I want to add greens to my mashed potatoes, I certainly can. In fact, the idea of making a batch of Colcannon has been speaking out to me for a long while. When I saw this version in a cookbook my father gave me, called The Country Cooking of Ireland, by Coleman Andrews, I knew I would try a batch this year.

I happen to love greens. Kale, chard, spinach, rapini, or collards...you name it, I like them all. So, this recipe is my kind of side dish. Yes, there's loads of butter in there. Yes, there's also whole milk and it's basically a 'carb-laden' mound of comfort in a bowl. But St. Patrick's Day comes but once a year - and yes, I do feel a bit better about it when the recipe involves a big pile of greens too.

Like any other traditional dish of Ireland, there are as many variations on this recipe as there are Irish Mamos. I've seen recipes that are little more than potatoes, milk, butter and kale. Some add in chopped cabbage, some add other greens - such as spinach or green herbs, like sorrel or parsley. However, my research has lead me to one conclusion - it's really just a way to use up whatever greens you happen to have on hand, or that happen to be in season. If cabbage is abundant, you would use that - same goes for kale, or any other green. Best of all, you can add in more than one type of leafy green - so it's a good way to use up the drips and drabs you might have leftover in the fridge.
I followed the recipe author's instructions for the most part. But I did decide to throw in some fresh parsley leaves...for obvious reasons. I also decided to use baby kale.
For those of you who have not tried baby kale yet - I really love it. Earthbound Farms sells containers of mixed baby kales in a clam shell container - just like their lettuce greens. So it's all washed and ready to use {super convenient}. The young leaves are very tender and much less bitter than mature kale. So it's a good option for those who may not be the biggest 'bitter greens' fan.

In this recipe, the russet potatoes are steamed with their skins on...which is a new technique for me. Usually, when I make mashed potatoes, I peel them ahead of time. Then, I chop the potatoes up into uniform sizes and boil them until tender. But by doing so, I'm boiling away and draining off all the potato flavor. This technique is a tad more involved than simply boiling potatoes, but I encourage you to try it. While potatoes are very bland in general, this technique will help extract as much flavor as possible from them.
Another great flavor maker in this recipe is scallions. The scallion greens are minced and steamed with milk and butter. This gives the milk a vichyssoise-like flavor...for those of you who have had vichyssoise {basically potato leek soup} you'll know what I'm talking about. It's seems scallions {or chives and leeks, for that matter} were destined to marry potatoes...because they're simply meant to be together.

You can read more about the traditional way to serve this dish in the recipe below - but I'll give you a hint: it has something to do with the pool of melted butter in the center.
I recommend serving Colcannon along side the other traditional Irish-American St. Patrick's Day staples of Corned Beef & Cabbage and Soda Bread. If you happen to have any leftovers, try making Colcannon Cakes - you can use this recipe for Boxty {Irish Potato Pancakes} and substitute the Colcannon for the plain mashed potatoes. If you're Irish, or if you just enjoy celebrating St. Patricks' Day and the food of Ireland, I highly recommend you purchase The Country Cooking of Ireland cookbook. It's as much an encyclopedia as it is a cookbook and it's so gorgeous, it will end up on your coffee table instead of a bookshelf. Enjoy!

Scalloped Potatoes & Fennel

I realize that for those of you out there trying to turn over a new healthy-eating leaf this New Year my posting a ridiculously rich and carb-loaded casserole is not exactly helping your cause.  I'm hoping that having this dish on the other side of your computer screen versus sitting right in front of you makes it okay {smiling}.
Truth is, I do have some healthy January recipes on deck.  But before I went ahead with those, I wanted to sneak this one in.  I, for one, am a bit behind with getting started on my resolutions - at least the ones that involve me snapping out of the holiday indulging habits.

This year I hosted dinner at my house on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.  Both were small gatherings - which was nice.  I didn't have to go too bonkers with the food and my house is small, so intimate groups are my favorite.  When planning my Christmas meal I spotted this recipe from Bon Appétit.  I knew I wanted to make scalloped potatoes, but didn't know exactly what recipe I'd use.  One familiar, or a new one?
When I saw this version, using a mixture of russet potatoes and sliced fennel along with garlic and fresh rosemary - I was sold.

You may have noticed by now...I love fennel and have posted quite a few recipes here featuring it. Such as Fennel & Orange Salad, Edamame & Fennel Salad, Tiny Pasta & Pea Soup, and more recently this Couscous with Roasted Fennel & Toasted Almonds. 
While it does have a taste similar to black licorice, I don't think you necessarily have to be a fan of licorice in order to like fennel, as the anise flavor is more subtle.  It's especially subtle when you cook the fennel.  In fact, the rosemary used in these scalloped potatoes has such a strong presence that it does knock the fennel flavor out quite a bit. 
While the fennel is subtle in this dish, I still think it's a necessary factor in the overall end result and because of this, I wouldn't want to leave it out.  The flavor of these scalloped potatoes is unlike anything you've probably ever tried.  It has many layers yet everything balances out so well.
I love scalloped potatoes in general, but I really love these.  So much so I polished off whatever was leftover on Christmas later on that evening...just the plastic container, a fork and me.  And because it was Christmas, I didn't have one shred of guilt about it either.
Since they were such a big hit the first time around, I decided to make them again a week later - for New Year's Eve.  I also wanted to blog the recipe, so making them again for guests was a better idea than making them again for no one in particular - only to end up eating the whole thing myself.  
I decided to have my little guy help me out with the recipe.  While we were prepping and measuring, I was also taking photos and doing a dozen different things and because of this an extra cup of cream ended up in the mix.  It was quite the bummer, because while they were still good - they weren't knock my socks off good.  The extra cream made everything too soupy and it was too bad I didn't realize it until after the fact and after any chance to fix it had passed.
It just goes to prove that I have screw ups in the kitchen all the time.