Dressing up potato salad: chefs add new touches to turn picnic favorite into stylish side dish

Nation's Restaurant News, August 11, 2003 by Carolyn Walkup

Summer apples from Oregon find their way into the Umpqua summer salad served at Timberline Lodge in Timberline, Ore. Chef Leif Eric Benson combines cooked and peeled bay shrimp, celery, diced apples, bell pepper, cooked diced red potatoes and raisins. For the dressing he mixes mayonnaise, lemon juice, fresh dill, salt and pepper. He serves the salad on a bed of lettuce, garnished with hardboiled egg slices.

Of course, potatoes are a natural accompaniment to red meats, including lamb. Glenn Harris, executive chef at Jane in New York, is serving a warm potato salad with grilled spring lamb this summer. He marinates potato wedges in a puree of olive oil, herbs and garlic, roasts them and then tosses them with baby arugula, cherry tomatos, picholine olives, capers, mint and sliced red onion. The dressing is a charred-tomato vinaigrette.

Cold potato salad has become a lunchtime staple with sandwiches and barbecued baby back ribs at Emil-Lene's Sirloin House in Aurora, Colo. One variation made by chef Mike Forren combines the russet potatoes with carrots, celery, sharp Cheddar cheese cubes and a house-made dressing that includes chicken stock base, vinegar and mayonnaise.

Forren notes that baked potatoes not served with the night's steak dinners are perfect for the next day's potato salads.