Comfort food in all its glory is the focus of Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Comfort. Naturally, that means plenty of cheese (cheesy bread soup), pasta (caramelised onion orecchiette with hazelnuts and crispy sage) and potatoes (mashed with cheese and garlic). Also in the potato camp is this potato salad, which brings the background of Verena Lochmuller, a German-born development chef at Ottolenghi, into the spotlight.
“Growing up in Germany, Verena remembers two camps when it came to potato salad: camp mayo and camp oil/broth,” writes Ottolenghi. “This is an oil/broth-based version, more prevalent in the southern parts of Germany, specifically Swabia and Bavaria. It’s less heavy and claggy than the mayo variety and gets its creaminess from the starch released by the potatoes as they sit for a couple of hours in the warm broth. We’ve strayed from tradition and added some pancetta (because, why not…) and a welcome freshness from some chopped cucumber.”
Yotam Ottolenghi and Verena Lochmuller’s potato salad
Serves 4
Preparation time: 25 minutes, plus cooling and 2 hours soaking
Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Ingredients
500g Pink Fir or Charlotte (or other waxy) potatoes
75ml olive oil
1 small onion (125g), finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
175ml chicken stock
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
½ tsp black peppercorns, coarsely crushed in a pestle and mortar
15g chives, 10g finely chopped and 5g cut into 1½cm lengths
75g diced smoked pancetta
1 tsp paprika
¼ cucumber (100g), sliced lengthways, deseeded and cut into ½cm dice
Salt, for sprinkling
Method
Put the potatoes into a medium saucepan for which you have a lid. Add just enough water to cover, salt generously and place on a medium-high heat. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for 20–25 minutes, until just tender. Drain, and once cool enough to handle, remove the skins from the potatoes and slice into ½cm-thick rounds. Set aside in a medium bowl.
Put 2 tbsp of the oil into a medium saute pan and place on a medium heat. Add the onion and cool for 12—15 minutes, stirring regularly, until caramelised. Add the garlic and stock, bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat. Add the mustard, vinegar, 1¼ tsp of salt, the pepper and another 2 tbsp of oil. Whisk to combine, then pour the mixture over the potatoes. Mix gently but thoroughly: it will look wet (and some of the potatoes will break up), but this is normal. Set aside for about 2 hours, for the potatoes to soak up about half the broth, and then stir in the finely chopped chives.
Meanwhile, wipe clean the saute pan and place on a medium-high heat. Add the pancetta, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 10–12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pancetta is crispy. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper – leave about 1 tbsp of the fat in the pan – and set aside. Once cool, finely chop the pancetta into crumbs.
Add the remaining tbsp of oil to the fat in the pan, along with the paprika. Stir for 30 seconds or so, until fragrant, then remove from the heat.
When ready to serve, fold the cucumber into the potato salad and transfer to a serving plate. Scatter over the pancetta crumbs, along with the cut chives. Spoon over the paprika oil and serve.
Extracted from Ottolenghi COMFORT by Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley (Ebury Press, $65). All photography by Jonathan Lovekin.
