Nordic Cuisine Inspired Potato Salad.

Friday marked the end of summer for me. It was cold and rainy and I spent the day at home studying. I’m taking a film course this semester. As well as spending the day reading, I had to watch movies. It’s certainly not a bad thing. But even that which is meant to entertain can become tedious when you’re making notes and watching closely. And the material isn’t exactly not difficult as far as its content is concerned.

I needed a break and I just so happened to have the episode of Parts Unknown where Anthony Bourdain goes to Noma in Copenhagen on my Apple TV. I’ve never watched that particular episode. But I certainly know the lore of Noma. It’s arguably the best restaurant in the world. They serve beautiful looking and spectacular tasting dishes basically composed of moss, vegetables that have been left to go moldy, and other found ingredients.

As a side note: the Noma cookbook makes me feel incredibly inadequate about my own food photography because the images are so breathtaking.

At one point in the program, René Redzepi takes Anthony to the farm that supplies the restaurant with their meat and vegetables. While at the farm, they make steak tartar, white asparagus, and the most stunning potato salad I’ve ever seen. They made other things too but I was really struck by the beauty of the potatoes. It was covered in with flowers the chefs found on the ground around them.

I got back to studying eventually. By the time I was finished for the day it was really too late to go grocery shopping for dinner. Therefore, I had to make do with the pantry staples I had at home.

I was thinking about that potato salad. Something that pretty couldn’t possibly be that delicious, right?

So what is a skeptical person like myself to do? I obviously had to make it.

I bought these cute little German butterball potatoes from the farmers market on Wednesday. I cut the smaller ones in half and the bigger ones into quarters. I covered the potatoes in a pot with cold water which I salted liberally and I brought the whole thing to a boil. Once boiling, I placed a lid on the pot and turned the burner to a simmer. They’re done once you can insert a fork without effort into a potato and it comes out easily (around five minutes).

While the potatoes were cooking I braved the rain in order to pick some flowers from my herb garden. It was actually kind of nice. The dampness reminded me of BC.

I picked a few flowers and leaves from my purple basil plant and a few chives with their flowers.

There’s a Valerian plant growing in my garden. I’ve never used it for culinary or medicinal purposes before. However, it's very pretty. Some of the flowers were a little too bitter for my taste. But there were some white flowers that had a spicy aftertaste reminiscent of horseradish that I ended up using in the final dish.

I ran back inside, drained the potatoes in a colander, and made a simple vinaigrette from almond oil (any plain tasting oil is fine), apple cider vinegar, the juice from half a lemon, and a big pinch of sea salt.

I like my salad dressings to be on the acidic side. So I flip the formula from two parts oil to one part acid so that it's two parts acid to one part oil.

Making sure the potatoes were still steaming hot, I dressed the potatoes with the vinaigrette in a bowl and I finished the dish with the fresh herbs and flowers.

I was skeptical but the taste is beautiful. It’s so fresh tasting and simple. I can hardly justify writing a recipe for it.

I ate it with fried sardines seasoned with paprika and blistered cherry tomatoes.

It's a nice simple dinner to ease into the changing season.

#Vegan #Vegatables #Potatoes