Cookbook Review Recipe - Smoked Salmon, Horseradish and New Potato Salad

If you have yet to try a warm potato salad, don't be put off by it. The still hot potatoes slurp up all the flavors of the sauce instantly leaving you with potato morsels bursting with pungency. The high electric notes of the lemon are balanced beautifully with the cool creamy sour cream and smokey fish. This is not your typical understated mayo-ey potato salad; it's one with sass. Pretty much perfect in my eyes.

Recipe adapted slightly from Jamie's Dinners: The Essential Family Cookbook
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Serves 4

1 1/2 lb new potatoes, scrubbed
4 heaping tbsp sour cream
zest of 2 lemons, and juice of 1
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt and black pepper
1-4 tsp horseradish (can use fresh grated, or prepared)
a handful of fresh parsley
a handful of fresh chives
a small bunch of green onions, fined diced
7 oz smoked salmon or trout

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil. You want potatoes to be a uniform golf-ball size, so add them whole to the pot if they are small enough, and cut others in half if you need to. Get all potatoes into the pot and boil until tender (about 10 minutes or so). Drain and place them back in the pot. While the potatoes are still hot, add the sour cream, zest and juice of 1 lemon and your olive oil. Toss around and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add or grate in your horseradish, tasting as you go, to see how much heat you can handle. Chop up the parsley and chives and throw these into the pot, along with the green onions. Tear up the smoked fish and mix everything together. Now it's very important to balance your salad with more seasoning and maybe an extra squeeze of lemon. You may even want to give it more of a kick by adding more horseradish. Put salad in a nice serving dish and eat as a starter, a side salad or even as a meal itself.

Click here for printable version of Smoked Salmon, Horseradish, and New Potato Salad
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THE RESULTS?
This potato salad is phenomenal. I served this to a bunch of guests at a family gathering and EVERYONE went back for second and third helpings. The flavors are fresh and exciting and paired really well together. What I also loved was how forgiving it is. It tasted fabulous hot, room temperature or cold the next day, which made it perfect to serve to guests as I didn't have to worry so much about the timing.

I will point out that my slight adaptation of this recipe was to use smoked salmon instead of trout or eel as the recipe suggests. In my opinion the whole point is to pair smoked fish with horseradish, lemon and new potatoes, so whichever fish is more easily accessible to you should be your choice. I also cut the amount of fish down by half since it is a very pricey item. You can definitely get away with this since it is an ingredient with such a strong flavor.

Meal Ideas: