Potato Salad with Wild Herbs

Freek van Noortwijk and Guillaume de Beer showed this weekend at their Piepershow on Amsterdam’s red-light district that potatoes absolutely don’t have to be boring. In ten minutes, you got three courses with potato in the starring role, making you forget about the existence of pasta and rice for a little while.

This potato salad is nothing like those greasy, overcooked salads you’re used to having at the average barbecue. The potatoes still have bite, and thanks to the crème fraîche, cornichons, capers and apple, the salad is wonderfully fresh.

Method

1. Peel the potatoes and boil them in generously salted water until just tender, about 18 min. Drain the potatoes and leave them to steam dry.

2. Cut into rough pieces. Cut the cornichons, capers, apple and smoked herring into small cubes. Finely chop the roughly chopped green herbs.

3. Mix the potatoes with the cornichons, capers, apple, smoked herring, lemon zest and green herbs. Gently stir in the mayonnaise and crème fraîche as well. Make sure not to mash the potatoes. Season with salt, black pepper and the vinegar. Divide the salad between plates and place half a herring alongside each serving. Sprinkle with wild herbs and some freshly grated horseradish.

Tip
You can find wild herbs in the garden or along the roadside. Look for chickweed, salad burnet, wild watercress, Chinese chive flowers, field cress, bittercress or wild garlic.

Photography: Mitchell van Voorbergen