A Tale of Two Salads

Sometimes when I cook, there are two dishes: the dish of my imagination and planning and that of reality.  The first version has the presentation of a Michelin-starred restaurant, flavours and textures so perfect as to make you weep.  The second somehow disappoints.  I fear the same is true of other cooks and bloggers - I also fear that the first dish is the one that makes it to blogs more often than the second (or at least, a part of me hopes that is the case).

And so last night was about two potato salads.  I wanted a main-course salad - potatoes served with hot, crisp bacon and slivers of chorizo, melting strings of cheese, the bite of a few steamed green beans and rich with good olive oil.  What I got was a steaming mush with bits in.

While the salad tasted fine, it just had the look and texture of something too wintery, too stodgy and inappropriately flabby.

So what went wrong?  As always, it can only come down to two things: ingredients or technique.  In this case, both were wrong, but primarily the problem was the potatoes.  I should have known better.

Salad potatoes are small and waxy - they are pink fir apples, charlottes or Jersey Royals.  Mid-sized floury potatoes will not do.  Floury potatoes are what you need for roasting, for chips or for mash - when you need them to absorb some of that fat either to make them silky smooth or to have crunch.  Waxy potatoes are what you need when you want bite and a covering in oil or butter. 

Cheese, Bacon & Chorizo Potato Salad (the imaginary version):
Potatoes - small, waxy - enough for two and then some more, scrubbed
Bacon - good quality dry-cured smoked back or streaky - a good sized rasher each cut into fat lardons
Chorizo - an inch or two per person, halved lengthways and cut into thin slices
Cheese - an ounce or so per person - gruyere or cheddar or a mix of both - one for meltability one for cheesiness
Green beans - a couple per person, steamed and cut into tiny rounds
Mustard - a good teaspoonful of Dijon
Extra Virgin Olive Oil - two tablespoons
Sherry vinegar - a teaspoon

Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender.  Fry the bacon and chorizo until it starts to crisp.  Finely dice the cheese and put into a large bowl with the green beans.  When the potatoes are cooked and still steaming hot, halve and add to the cheese.  Add the bacon and chorizo, both still hot.  Whisk the mustard, oil and vinegar together and use to dress the potatoes.
Allow to cool a little - the cheese should melt seductively over the potatoes and cheese - you should have something really quite silky and enticing.  And not a pile of mash with bits in.

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