Spring Potato Salad

I mentioned last week how I made guacamole with my friend Carolyn while I was in St. Louis. The other dish we made was potato salad.

My parents have a huge mass of chives growing in their backyard. We don’t have any herbs growing at the moment, so I wanted to take advantage of the ones available while I could. My mom suggested potato salad because everyone knows chives and potatoes are best friends. She got out her recipe box and pulled out a recipe from a good friend that everyone enjoys. I made a few tweaks as the original recipe didn’t include chives and I thought making homemade aioli would add some extra pop.

Spring Potato Salad

• 2 pounds new potatoes
• 5 cloves of garlic, peeled
• large pinch of salt
• 1 egg yolk, room temperature
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 4 tablespoons chopped chives
• 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• freshly cracked pepper

1. Wash the potatoes, then place in a large pot and cover with cold water. Cover and heat over high heat until water is boiling. Reduce heat and cook until potatoes are tender, about half an hour.
2. Meanwhile, place the garlic and salt in a blender or food processor. Pulse for a couple seconds. Add in the egg yolk and lemon juice. Pulse until blended. With the blender running, slowly add in the olive oil, until a thick sauce has formed. Set aside.
3. When potatoes are cooked, drain and allow to cool. When cool enough to handle, cube the potatoes.
4. In a large bowl, mix potatoes with aioli, vinegar, chives and black pepper to taste. Chill and serve.

Serves 4

Olive oil certainly has a distinct taste. You could substitute a neutral-flavored oil for part of the olive oil for a mellower tasting aioli.

The salad was much better the second day. The flavors did a wonderful job of melding together. Plan ahead and make it a day in advance if you can. I thought it could benefit from even more chives, but other people seemed to think it was ok.

This recipe is being shared in Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted over at Erbe in Cucina this week.