Piemontaise ( Classic bistro potato salad)

The Piemontaise is a French mixed potato salad composed of five simple ingredients mixed together with a homemade mayonnaise. I know it does not sound impressive But don’t be deceived yet  by its simplicity as this is one of France’s most iconic salad that pretty is much the whole France is eating on a regular basis.

This salad originated from the Italian region it is name after (piemontese region) but the recipe has been since really transformed and has become a French  recipe of his own to the point of becoming an iconic national dish.

Ingredients for the Piemontaise salad:

♦︎ 600 grams potatoes ( waxy types) ( diced)
♦︎ 300 grams of ripe tomatoes ( diced)
♦︎ 3 boiled eggs
♦︎ 8 small caliber sweet sour gherkins
♦︎ 200 grams of leg ham ( diced)
♦︎ 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley

For the dressing:
♦︎ 150 to 200 grams of mayonnaise.

Directions:

This piemontaise salad is mostly an assembly of ingredients and the key to success is to start preparing all of your ingredients  beforehand ( mise en place) as this will help making the recipe a breeze:

Always start with the things that will take the longest time. so in this case:

Start with the potatoes: peel  and chop you potatoes in cubes. when done, rinse them, then transfer into a  saucepan with  cold water. add one teaspoon of rock salt to the water and bring to the potatoes boil . once the water boil leave to cook until the potatoes are done.finally drain the potatoes, rinse them under cold water and reserve on the fridge for later use.

Next, hard boil your eggs: ( plunge the eggs in boiling water which will stop the boil temporarily . when the boil comes back time exactly 10 minutes take the eggs out and cool them down under running cold water.

Then Make a mayonnaise: for that I will refer you to one of my existing recipe. once the mayonnaise is done reserve it in a bowl in the fridge.

Finally Peel and chopped  the tomatoes: to do that , place a pot of water on the stove and bring it to a boil. Then drop the tomato into the boiling water. You can add several at a time. Remove them after 30 seconds or when the skin begins to peel and put them into the bowl of icy water. when done cut them in half squeeze the excess of juice and remove the seeds. then roughly chopped all of the tomatoes in rough cube

Now for the easy stuff:

Chop your ham in rough bitesize cubes and reserve in a container in the fridge

Chop the gherkins in a similar size as the ham and reserve in a container in the fridge

Assembling the salad:

This has to be done only once all the ingredients are cold.

• in a large salad bowl put all of the potatoes, followed by the ham, the gherkins, a handful of chopped parsley and a good pinch of salt and pepper.
• Add  the mayonnaise on top and mixed all these ingredients gently with a wooden spoon until they are evenly coated with the mayonnaise.
• you can now add the tomatoes in and stir again to mix them evenly with the rest.
• at the end or just before serving. peel you eggs. chopped them in rough cube like shapes and add then to the mix. give a final gentle stir and serve.

Food stacker ring can be fun to use;

if you happens to have one or buy one, you can test you plating skill by stacking the food ring with the potatoe salad and create a decoration on the plate with anything you like.

in the video I used some micro basil leaves, chopped capsicumsa dn gherkins to give a restaurant like effects. but you try all sort of things to decorate your plate.