Wow. Talk about flavor. This Nepalese Potato Salad is, admittedly, not my recipe. It’s from the new cookbook Smashed, Mashed, Boiled, and Baked by Raghavan Iyer, and I think I’m in love. It’s spicy and packed FULL of delicious South Asian spices and flavors. Plus, it’s yogurt-based, so it’s healthier than most potato salads.
And the COOKBOOK! It has to be the greatest ode to potatoes I’ve ever seen, and today’s your lucky day. I have an extra copy and it could be YOURS! (Go to the bottom of the post to find out how to enter the giveaway.)
Smashed, Mashed, Boiled, and Baked has 75 potato recipes in literally every form you can think of, from all around the world. And it’s not just side dishes- it has salads, main courses, and even desserts that feature potatoes as the main event. It has plenty of vegetarian recipes, but it’s not exclusively vegetarian, and many gluten-free recipes since potatoes are a gluten-free, carbalicious (did I just coin new word?) favorite. This recipe uses fingerling potatoes, which are perhaps the most adorable potatoes in the world. They are tiny and thin, and come in all kinds of varieties. Their skin is delicate, their texture creamy, and flavor subtle. They make the perfect complement to all the potent flavors and textures of the creamy yogurt and fresh spices and herbs in this recipe.
One of my favorite parts about this recipe was the use of whole spices, toasted and ground in a mortar and pestle. I’ve had a mortar and pestle for ages, but never got around to using it. So many traditional south Asian recipes call for grinding your own spices to get that true, authentic taste. This recipe certainly did not disappoint when it came to authentic taste, and grinding the spices was not as labor intensive as I anticipated (it was actually very easy!). If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, or if you simply don’t want to drag it out of the corner of your closet, you can also grind the spices in a spice grinder (like a coffee grinder that you don’t use for coffee).
Now, for the rules of the giveaway! If you want to own a copy of Smashed, Mashed, Boiled, and Baked by Raghavan Iyer, simply do both of the following: Recipe for Nepalese Potato Salad below!
