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austrian
style
potato salad
When I opened Mistress Augustine’s in 1981 we used to make this potato salad every day for our terrific open rare beef sandwiches. It got to the point that I couldn’t taste it without gagging I was so sick of it. As we slowly moved into a restaurant format, rather than posh sandwich shop, we stopped making it completely. It took about another ten years before I could make it and revel in its deliciousness.
I do have a bit of a laugh at the moment, as all of these sandwich shops open, selling, in the main, a pretty ordinary offering. Within weeks of opening Mistress, our beautiful a la minute open sandwiches gave us a line up until sold out, and that was forty-three years ago…LOL!!
When I started cooking in my very early twenties, it was my Austrian and German friends who greatly influenced my repertoire, and this recipe comes straight from my friend Elizabeth Klose, who, in the late 70s, ran Adelaide’s best continental delicatessen on O’Connell Street, North Adelaide.
The secret to this universally loved potato salad is that the potatoes are steamed and added hot into the mayonnaise. It is best not refrigerated but left in a cool place. Try and make it just a couple of hours before you want to serve it. If you mush refrigerate it take it out of the fridge well before you want to serve.
You may need a little more mayonnaise depending on your type of potato. I usually start with the base amount and then once it has cooled a bit and soaked into the potatoes decide if I will add a little more or not.
You can bulk this out by serving with a pile of nice crunchy soil-grown baby cos.
9 December 2024 AO
you will need
enough for about 8-10 as an accompaniment
2kg medium Desire potatoes, try and get roughly the same size
300g lemon mayonnaise + sometimes a little extra
60g sour cream
200g p/w red onion, very finely chopped
30 cornichons, very finely sliced
40g tiny capers, drained…finely chopped if you only have large capers
Maldon sea salt
black pepper, freshly ground
½ bunch dill, a proper bunch leafed and chopped at the last minute
to assemble
In a large bowl, mix together everything from the mayonnaise to the capers.
Set up a steamer. Wash the potatoes and steam them until they are just cooked. Leaving them above the steaming water so that they stay hot and holding a potato in a folded tea towel to protect your hands, peel them and slice into the mayonnaise mix, stirring over after adding each potato.
Repeat the process until all of the potatoes have been processed. Stir well and taste and adjust seasoning as required. When the salad has cooled a little, mix through the dill and decide whether or not it needs a little more mayonnaise.
PICTURED RIGHT A QUICK HOMELY VERSION ON THE THEME, WITH BLANCHED SILVERBEET THAT HAS HAD ALL MOISTURES SQUEEZED OUT BEFORE ADDING
on a hot day
On a hot day, I would not use mayonnaise and instead use olive oil and vinegar.
an excellent option
An excellent option is to skip the cornichons and instead add salted and squeezed grated radish or finely sliced peeled and salted cucumber, also squeezed out.
PICTURED LEFT ANOTHER EXCELLENT SALAD WITH SCALLOPS, CUCUMBER AND RADISH CLICK ON THE IMAGE
another favourite
Another favourite is the potato and endive salad. Not many Australian cooks are familiar with curly endive and mistakenly try to use all of it…how to handle the endive is clearly explained in the link.
or go russian
Add all the finely chopped Béarnaise herbs, chives, chervil, parsley, and tarragon. Then add about 300g very finely diced carrot that has been blanched to remove the rawness, refresh under cold water and dry on paper towel. Then mix through six coarsely sieved hard-boiled egg yolks.
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