Potato salad is summer’s side dish

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, June 7, 2016

With Memorial Day in our rearview mirrors, I consider the season of Outdoor Eating to have officially begun. This prompts a trip to my recipe files to pull out all my favorite potato salad offerings. And the three I’m sharing with you this week are at the very top of my list. Each one brings a special twist to the potato salad genre.

But first, a little potato primer. Using the right kind of potato in your potato salad can mean the difference between well-defined potato chunks and mush. Classic family recipe aside — which may force you to use a russet potato because “that’s the way Grandma made it,” the potato of choice is usually a lower-starch variety, typically called “new” potatoes.

It’s a starch thing, which as we all know is a prominent part of a potato’s composition. Actually, starch granules. The amount and size of starch granules in any given potato is determined by variety and growing conditions. And it’s the amount and size of those starch granules that determines how a potato behaves in your salad recipe.

When a potato is heated, the starch granules absorb water from surrounding tissue and swell. The common russet potato (also known as Idaho russet or simply Idaho or “baking” potato), contains relatively large starch granules. So the russet can absorb more water from around the cells, which produces its characteristic dry, mealy texture. This is why the Russet Burbank is considered excellent for baking and mashed potato dishes but not the best choice for potato salads, since they tend to fall apart when manipulated too much.

I happen to love the Yukon Golds, which have a lower starch content than the russet but still high enough to provide a tender texture. They also have that glorious golden yellow flesh and a buttery, sweet taste.

Lower-starch varieties like red potatoes and some round white varieties have even smaller starch granules then the Yukon. So they aren’t absorbing a high amount of moisture from the surrounding tissues, which means their cells don’t separate and produce that “baked potato” fluffiness. Along with the Yukon Gold, these are the guys you want to use for most potato salads.

With that said, one of my favorite recipes is the one I acquired from a popular Corvallis eatery, Old World Deli, and it just happens to use the russet. But if you read through it, you’ll understand how the creator of this most wonderful concoction, co-owner Veronica Cox, has made it work. And work it does! I absolutely love Old World Deli’s potato salad — both for what it is and what it isn’t. On the surface, it’s a humble preparation consisting of a mere eight ingredients: potato, celery, onion, hard-cooked egg, black olive, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. A classic All-American production.

But it’s The Simple Black Dress of potato salads. In fact, it was a brave and confident cook who put such an unassuming preparation on the deli’s lineup instead of something more robust and, well, mustardy.

Which leads me to my second and third recipes. Each one brings a bit more zing to the table. So among them all, you should find something new and exciting to bring to your summer meals.

— Jan Roberts-Dominguez is a Corvallis food writer, artist, and author of “Oregon Hazelnut Country, the Food, the Drink, the Spirit,” and four other cookbooks. Readers can contact her by email at janrd@proaxis.com, or obtain additional recipes and food tips on her blog at www.janrd.com.