I love, love, LOVE this dish. It’s creamy, its’ crispy, its’ tangy, it’s porky, it’s sweet. And it somehow manages to be both rustic and filling AND fresh and refined.
This is how I like to eat it: it’s September, it’s sunny, I’m standing on the porch on our countryside looking out over the water and the cows grazing in the field. The 2-year-old is sleeping, the 4-year-old is watching some crap on the iPad, my husband and me, not a quarrel in sight, sits down, open 2 bottles of IPA, sighs, and dig in.
This time around, I’ve used pork sausages spiced with lemon zest and oregano from the great butcher Taylor & Jones in Stockholm. If you don’t live in Stockholm, nor near a great butcher, opt for a pork sausage with a high meat content.
Don’t overthink the measurements for the dressing, you pretty much can’t go wrong. Heaped, scant, whatever. But you want it to be pretty tangy and mustardy because the potatoes will later dulcify it.
I would say, start with making the pickled onions cause they should be served cool anyway. Then boil the potatoes. While they are boiling away you make the dressing and get your greens and condiments ready. Let the potatoes cool for a bit, then mix with the dressing. Fry the sausages. Sprinkle some fancy stuff on your salad. Eat.
- Serves 4
- 800 g of potatoes of better quality, firm, waxy, yellow or red. (In Sweden, Aspargus, Amadine, Charlotte. In US, fingerlings like Russian Banana or Charlotte, Desiree, Wilja, Nadine, Nicola.)
- 100 g of mixed greens, like arugula, baby spinach, etc.
- 1 medium size cucumber
- Optional: 1 package of feta cheese, crumbled into chunks
- ½ cup of olive oil
- 2 tsp French mustard
- 2 tbsp white balsamico
- 2 lemons, the zest from 1 lemon + I tbsp of the juice + zest for sprinkling on top
- 2 tbsp crème fraiche/fat yoghurt
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 small clove of garlic
- Black pepper
- Pea shoots, chopped up real roughly if needed
- 1 green chili, chopped up finely
- Some toasted seeds, pumpkin or sunseed
- Some grated lemon zest
- Chili flakes
- 2 medium sized red onions
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1½ tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp of white balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsp of water
- Optional: a thumb of fresh ginger, grated
- Chili flakes
- Lemon wedges
- Flaky sea salt
- Optional: mayonnaise, homemade or bought
- Optional: A few bottles of nice lager or IPA
- Start by pickle the onions. Slice the onions finely and put in a dry saucepan. Fry for 2 minutes. Then add the water, vinegar, salt and sugar (and fresh grated ginger). Let simmer for, say, 7 minutes. Put in a glass jar. Can be stored in the fridge for at least a week.
- Boil the potatoes, unpeeled.
- Cut the cucumber in square bits. (Crumble the feta cheese.)
- Make the dressing: take a small bowl and add ingredient after ingredient, in the given order, stir in between.
- Let the potatoes cool a bit, peel if needed/if you prefer it.
- Fry the sausages (in, say, a mix of butter and olive oil). Turn off heat, leave the sausages in the pan.
- Put your condiments – mayo, pickled onions, chili flakes, etc. – in small bowls on the table.
- Cut the potatoes in square-y bits, I usually cut each potato in four. Put them in a large salad bowl. Pour the dressing over it. Mix gently.
- Add your mixed greens (the feta cheese) and the cucumbers on top. Then sprinkle over the rest of your seedy, zesty, flaky toppings, in the given order (or in any order you like!). Drizzle with olive oil. Put on table.
- Put the sausages on the table, in the pan, or on a fancier serving plate, as you feel like.
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