Recipe by Jodie Smith

Warm Potato Salad With Honey Mustard Dressing

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Ottolenghi Honey Mustard Dressing (250ml)

$24.95

Hand-packed and dispatched from our Corio, Victoria warehouse, with free delivery Australia-wide on orders over $100.

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

Bottle of Ottolenghi honey mustard dressing 250ml, the bottled shortcut for this warm potato salad

Honey mustard dressing is Dijon, honey, vinegar and olive oil shaken until it thickens: one part mustard, one part honey, one part vinegar, three parts oil. Pour it on while the potatoes are still steaming, because warm potato drinks dressing and cold potato only wears it. Serves 6, prep 15 minutes, cook 20 minutes.

Dress them hot, and dress them twice

A potato straight out of the water is still giving off steam and its starch is soft and open, so oil, vinegar and mustard go into it rather than sitting on it. Let the same potato cool first and the starch firms as it sets, the cut face turns slick, and the dressing slides around the bowl instead. That is the difference between a potato salad that tastes seasoned all the way through and one that tastes like potatoes with something on them.

Two practical things follow. Halve the potatoes while they are still too hot to hold comfortably, steadying them with a tea towel, because a cut face takes up far more than a skin does. Then split the dressing in two: half goes on hot and vanishes, the rest goes on five minutes later so the salad still looks dressed when it reaches the table. Pour it all on at once and you will be standing over a dry-looking bowl wondering where 90ml of dressing went.

What each part of the dressing is doing

Mustard is the emulsifier. It holds the oil and the vinegar together long enough to coat everything, which is why honey mustard dressing does not need whisking back together every thirty seconds the way a plain vinaigrette does. Use a smooth Dijon for that job. TRCC Mustang Dijon mustard, 270g for $12.95, is the jar we keep for dressings, because a seeded mustard looks good in a bowl and emulsifies poorly.

Honey does two jobs, body and balance. It thickens the dressing slightly and it takes the edge off the vinegar, so you can use enough acid to cut through starch without the salad tasting sharp. The oil carries all of it, and a grassy Australian oil such as Kangaroo Island extra virgin olive oil, 250ml for $19.25, still reads through the honey. If the dressing splits, whisk in a teaspoon of warm water and it comes back.

One addition is worth the extra minute: a teaspoon of preserved lemon skin, finely chopped, from a 200g jar of Belazu preserved lemons at $12.95. It puts a savoury citrus note behind the honey, which is the thing that stops a sweet dressing tasting flat by the third forkful. Scrape the pulp out and use the rind only.

The two bottles we stock, side by side

Some nights you are not making a dressing at all. Two bottles on our shelves do this job and they suit different evenings. The Ottolenghi honey mustard dressing is 250ml for $24.95 and is described as a take on the classic with preserved lemon and Dijon mustard, which is the savoury citrus lift you would otherwise build by hand. The TRCC Australian honey mustard dressing is 100ml for $7.95, one of the small bottles from The Regimental Condiment Company that also run to caramelised balsamics and a mango and kaffir lime.

Compare them per millilitre rather than per bottle and the picture changes. At $24.95 for 250ml the Ottolenghi lands just under $10 per 100ml against $7.95, so the real gap is much narrower than the shelf prices suggest. What you are choosing is how much dressing you want to own. The 100ml bottle is the Tuesday one, gone in a fortnight, no commitment. The 250ml is the one to open when there are people at the table, and it wraps well, which is the sort of bottle our Ottolenghi hampers are built around. It arrived as part of the Ottolenghi range alongside the marmalade dressing and the spiced nuts, and all three end up in the same bowl more often than not.

Ingredients

Serves 6 as a side. Prep 15 minutes. Cook 20 minutes. The potatoes, beans, herbs and honey are a supermarket run. The mustard, the oil and the preserved lemon are the shelf-stable half of the list, and they are the parts that keep once the salad is eaten.

Ingredients

For the salad
1.2kg	small waxy potatoes, chat, kipfler or Dutch cream, scrubbed
1 tbsp	salt, for the cooking water
200g	green beans, topped
3	spring onions, thinly sliced
3 tbsp	dill, roughly chopped
	sea salt and black pepper, to season
For the honey mustard dressing
2 tbsp	TRCC Mustang Dijon mustard
2 tbsp	honey
2 tbsp	white wine vinegar, or lemon juice
90ml	Kangaroo Island extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp	Belazu preserved lemon, skin only, finely chopped, optional
Or, straight from the bottle
120ml	Ottolenghi honey mustard dressing, about half a bottle, in place of everything above
To finish, optional
40g	Ottolenghi rosemary spiced nuts, roughly chopped

The potato does more work here than the dressing

Use a waxy potato. Chat, kipfler, Dutch cream, nicola, any small potato that holds its shape has enough moisture and little enough starch to stay in pieces when you turn it in a bowl. A floury potato, sebago or russet, takes up dressing beautifully and then collapses into a rough mash the moment you stir it. That is a fine thing to eat and a poor thing to carry to a barbecue.

Start them whole in cold salted water rather than dropping them into a boiling pot. A cold start brings the outside and the middle up to temperature together, so the edges are not blown out by the time a skewer goes through the centre. Salt the water the way you would for pasta, roughly a tablespoon to a large pot, because that is the only chance the inside of a potato gets to be seasoned. Test with a skewer, not a fork, which splits them.

If it has to travel

Get it cold before it goes anywhere. Spread it in a wide shallow dish, leave it uncovered until the steam stops, then cover and refrigerate. A deep bowl cools from the outside in and its middle is still warm an hour later. Pack it in the dish you will serve from, with a lid, put the ice bricks on top, not underneath, because cold air falls, and keep the esky in the cabin rather than the boot. A vinaigrette has no egg in it, so if it separates on the drive that is one turn of a spoon away from right, which is more than a mayonnaise salad will give you. Cooked potato has to be kept cold whatever dressed it, so check your state authority's current advice on food left out of the fridge before a hot-weather lunch.

Method

Scrub the potatoes and put them into a large pot whole, with cold water to cover and a tablespoon of salt.
Bring the pot to the boil, then turn it down to a steady simmer.
Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until a skewer slides into the largest potato with no resistance.
Drop the green beans into the same pot for the last 3 minutes.
Lift the beans out with tongs, run them under cold water and drain them.
Drain the potatoes and leave them in the colander for 2 minutes so the surface dries.
While they steam, put the mustard, honey, vinegar and a good pinch of salt in a jar and shake it.
Add the olive oil and the preserved lemon, seal the jar and shake for 20 seconds, until the dressing thickens and turns pale.
Halve the potatoes while they are still too hot to hold, using a tea towel to steady them.
Tip them into a wide bowl and pour over half the dressing.
Turn them once with a spatula, gently, then leave them for 5 minutes to take it up.
Add the beans, spring onions and dill, and pour over the rest of the dressing.
Turn everything through once more and season with sea salt and black pepper.
Scatter the chopped nuts over just before the bowl goes to the table, if you are using them.

Make it ahead, and what happens on day two

Cook and dress the potatoes up to two hours before you eat and leave the bowl on the bench, covered with a tea towel. Do not put it in the fridge in the meantime. Cold firms the starch back up and dulls the dressing, and you will have undone the thing the warm dressing was for. Hold the beans, herbs and nuts back until the last minute so they stay green and crisp.

There is no dairy and no egg in an oil, vinegar and mustard dressing, which is one reason a vinaigrette potato salad handles an outdoor table better than a mayonnaise one. Keep it under two hours out of the fridge on a hot day regardless. Leftovers keep covered in the fridge for two days, and the best thing to do with them is crush the potatoes flat and fry them in a hot pan until the cut faces catch, dressing and all.

Common questions

What goes in honey mustard dressing?

Dijon mustard, honey, an acid and oil, plus salt. The working ratio is one part mustard to one part honey to one part vinegar to three parts oil, which for this salad is 2 tablespoons each of mustard, honey and white wine vinegar to 90ml of extra virgin olive oil. Lemon juice can stand in for the vinegar. A finely chopped shallot, a teaspoon of preserved lemon skin or a spoonful of chopped dill all belong in it, and none of them is compulsory.

Should you dress potato salad warm or cold?

Warm, while the potatoes are still steaming. Hot potato starch is open and takes the dressing into the flesh, so the seasoning reaches the centre. Once the potatoes cool the starch sets firm and the dressing sits on the outside, which is why a cold-dressed potato salad often tastes bland in the middle and oily on the surface. Dress it hot, then top it up once more as it cools.

How long does honey mustard dressing keep once opened?

Made at home and kept in a sealed jar in the fridge, use it within about a week. Olive oil clouds and thickens when it is cold, so stand the jar on the bench for 20 minutes and shake it before you pour. For a bought bottle, check the label for the manufacturer's advice on storage and use after opening, since the two bottles we stock are made differently and the label is the authority, not us.

What can you put honey mustard dressing on besides salad?

Warm roast potatoes, roasted carrots or pumpkin, a raw cabbage slaw, poached or roast chicken while it is still warm, and a sandwich of cold cuts where it does the work of both the mustard and the mayonnaise. It also glazes chicken thighs on the barbecue, though brush it on in the last five minutes rather than at the start, because honey burns.

The mustard, the oils and both dressings sit in our pantry range, and the bottle this recipe was built around is in the Ottolenghi range with the orange marmalade dressing beside it, which is the one to try on shaved fennel. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. If you are working out the rest of the table, our guide to Christmas salads and the dressings that carry them covers what goes either side of this bowl.

Products in this recipe

BELAZU Preserved Lemons (200g)

$12.95

Kangaroo Island Olives - Extra Virgin Olive Oil 250ml

$19.25

Ottolenghi Honey Mustard Dressing (250ml)

$24.95

Ottolenghi Rosemary Spiced Nuts (110g)

$14.95

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