POTATO SALAD

POTATO SALADS COME IN NUMEROUS STYLES. Though recipes may seem dramatically different, most have four things in common—potatoes, of course; fat (usually bacon, olive oil, or mayonnaise); an acidic ingredient, usually vinegar, to perk things up; and flavorings for distinction. Though these salads may be very different in character, the issues affecting all of them, it turns out, are much the same.

We first wanted to know what type of potato should be used and how should it be cooked. Recipe writers seemed split down the middle between starchy and waxy potatoes, with starchy praised for being more absorbent and waxy admired for their sturdiness. We have always just boiled potatoes with the skin on, but steaming, microwaving, roasting, and baking are all options.

Next, when should the potato be peeled? On the assumption that hot potatoes are more absorbent, some thought it worth scorching fingertips to get the cooked potatoes peeled and cut immediately. Other recipe writers were more casual—"peel when cool enough to handle." Still others instructed us to refrigerate the cooled potatoes, then peel and cut the next day. And, of course, you may wonder whether you really need to peel them at all.

Finally, should potatoes be seasoned when still warm, assuming that they do absorb flavorings better in this state? Is it worth the two-step process of seasoning the potatoes with vinegar (or vinaigrette), salt, and pepper first? Or should you toss everything together at the same time?

After boiling, steaming, baking/roasting, and microwaving four different varieties of potatoes—Red Bliss, russets, potatoes labeled "all-purpose" in the market, and Yukon Golds—we found Red Bliss to be the potato of choice and boiling the cooking method of choice. Higher-starch potatoes—russets, all-purpose, and Yukon Golds—are not sturdy enough for salads. They fell apart when cut and looked sloppy in salad form.

Before giving up on high-starch potatoes, though, we wanted to test their absorption power, a selling point for many cooks. A number of potato salad recipes suggested an initial drizzling of vinegar over warm or hot salad potatoes to make them taste seasoned from within as well as dressed from without.

We found that high-starch potatoes are indeed more absorbent than the lower-starch varieties—to a fault. When tossed with vinegar, the high-starch potato salads tasted dry, sucking up all the vinegar and asking for more. These mealy, high-starch potatoes, we determined, were great for mashing or baking, but not for salad. The low-starch boiling potatoes successfully absorbed the vinegar but still remained firm and creamy.

Next we wanted to see if we could boost flavor at the cooking stage by boiling the potatoes in chicken broth and in water heavily seasoned with bay leaves and garlic cloves. The chicken stock may as well have been water—there wasn't even a hint of evidence that the potatoes had been cooked in stock. The bay leaves and garlic smelled wonderful as the potatoes cooked, but the potatoes were still bland-tasting (although the skins smelled faintly of garlic).

We tried boiling potatoes without the skin, but they were waterlogged compared with their skin-on counterparts. In salad form all the potatoes had a sloppy, broken look, and they tasted watery.

Although we might not want to eat the skin of a boiled Idaho in a salad, we found the paper-thin skin of the boiled red potato not unpleasant to taste and certainly pleasant to look at in what is often a monochromatic salad. Although this saved the peeling step, we found the skin tended to rip when cutting the potato. Because this was especially true when the potatoes were very hot, we solved the problem in two ways. First, we cut the potatoes with a very sharp knife, which minimized ripping, and second, we found it wasn't necessary to cut them when they were hot, since warm ones are just as absorbent.

By this time we had learned that warm potatoes do absorb vinegar better than cold potatoes, but we weren't necessarily sure where we wanted the acidity: Should it be in the potato, in the dressing, or in both? After much testing, we concluded that warm potatoes can be sprinkled with two tablespoons of vinegar; add more vinegar, though, and the potatoes will taste pickled. If the salad needs more vinegar, just add it to the dressing.