Potato ‘Patarto’ – Danish Salad

A dear friend turned the grand age of 80 this week and, for her party, asked the guests not to bring gifts, but instead bring some food. She politely suggested I bring some Potato Salad.

Sounds simple enough in principle, but not in practice.

Ordinarily, throwing together a potato salad would be child’s play, but this was a party of primarily Danish and Scandi folk. And Danish folk are very particular about their Kartoffelsalat – Potato Salad.

The pressure was on.

Some years ago, while still a novice to Danish cooking, I once made Ris a la mande for an event that some of these folk attended and overheard some of them stating the’ Rice’ dish was a little ‘different,’ from how it traditionally tastes. On hearing this, I was somewhat crushed but rationalized that I just needed more practice at traditional cooking methods.

Danish- Australian Potato Salad

I make potato salad with red-skinned potatoes, (I don’t skin them), add chopped hard-boiled eggs, artichoke hearts, and pickled cucumbers thus making the dish into a rounded meal. My friend, however, does not want that for her birthday party contribution. And when you have little time left on this earth, you get to choose!

My friend wants the dish made with potatoes only, dressed with sour cream/mayonnaise mix and maybe a little mustard. That seems a tad boring, I think. Nevertheless, I make it more or less with the ingredients listed below, but sprinkling the warm potatoes with a little Paul Newmans’ vinaigrette salad dressing and adding some Dijonaise to the dressing mix, (after the cooked potatoes had cooled down).

Kold Kartoffelsalat – Danish Potato Salad

Ingredients:
650 g (1.5 lb) small potatoes with peel
2 dl (1 cup) creme fraiche/sour cream
2 dl (1 cup) soured/acidified milk (or Greek yogurt)
bunch of chives (about 1 dl/1/2 cup), finely chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
salt

Potato Salad – the Danish Way from nordicfoodliving.com

As I was making up the final presentation and remembering the whispers about the Rice dish, I had a mild panic that I hadn’t followed the Danish traditional method of cooking the potatoes in their jackets and skinning them afterwards and I’d be admonished or, at least, I would be disappointing the birthday girl.

Would the Danes detect a change in the flavour?

This time, if they did taste anything different, nothing was said, and there was not an artichoke nor pickle in sight.

One man’s potato is not another man’s ‘potarto,‘ I guess.

How do you make potato salad or Kald Kartoffelsalat?

Mineral-rich Chicken Salad

A nice recipe below. They substituted ham, but I like the idea of shredded chicken. One could replace the pistachios with almonds ( in their kernel) or walnuts, or even brazil nuts, and increase the magnesium content of this dish.

Pistachio and ham salad.

This is based on a traditional Armenian recipe of pistachios, soured cream and shredded chicken breasts. You can also use chopped ham with salted pistachios for different results.

Serves 6

175g halloumi, washed and cut into 1cm cubes
4 small eating apples, cored and cut into 1cm cubes
500g cooked ham, cut into 1cm pieces (or cooked chicken breast, shredded)
250g celery, cut into ½ cm slices
2 spring onions, including green heads, cut into ½ cm pieces
175g shelled pistachios or other nuts
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp salt
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp turmeric

For the dressing
300ml yoghurt
300ml mayonnaise
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp parsley, chopped
4 tbsp chives, chopped
4 tbsp fresh tarragon, chopped

1 In a large bowl, toss together the halloumi, apples, ham, celery, spring onions and pistachios.

2 To make the dressing, whisk the yoghurt and mayonnaise until well blended. Add the mustard, lemon juice and herbs, then mix well.

3 Pour the yoghurt mayonnaise over the salad, together with the lemon juice, salt and cayenne pepper. Mix well then place in the refrigerator and allow to chill for around an hour.

4 Garnish with the turmeric  and serve.