Potato Salad with Fresh Turmeric
Fresh turmeric is my new favourite and most interesting ingredient! I don’t know why I’ve always walked past it without feeling any sense of curiosity and intrigue, but there you go. I made a miscalculation. It’s such an interesting ingredient. Its flavour is much more mild than I had expected, with a bit of the texture of a crispy and less-stringy ginger. It’s the most beautiful deep orange colour, and although it does have some of the flavour of the dried turmeric, it also has this fresh, almost dill-like quality as well. It leaves a little tingly feeling on your tongue after you’ve eaten it.
Turmeric; the golden spice, dates back at least 4000 years, to the Vedic culture in India. It made its way slowly through China and Africa in the years that followed, and was described by Marco Polo in 1280. It’s not surprising that it tastes a bit like ginger, as it’s part of the ginger family - a group of beautiful leafy plants (some with the most amazing ornamental flowers) that spreads through rhizomes under the ground. The rhizomes we eat (like turmeric and ginger) can be harvested every year (you take some, and leave the rest in the ground so that the plant can continue to grow for another year). The fresh turmeric you buy in the shops has been processed by boiling or steaming it, although traditional processing methods used to involve submerging the rhizomes in water inside earthenware pots, then covering them with leaves and cow dung!
I had kind of ignored the hype around the health benefits of turmeric, but this article makes a great read if you are interested in the current research on turmeric as an anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, anti-viral (and a heap of other good anti-related) food! Whether or not these benefits are significant when eaten on a small-scale, the thing is damn tasty and mighty interesting, so I intend to be eating it fresh much more often!
I’ve read that Turmeric pairs well with beans, eggplant, eggs, lentils, rice, fish, chicken, spinach and root vegetables. This time, I’ve tried adding matchsticks of fresh turmeric to a green bean and potato salad. It was great! The turmeric adds this almost indefinable extra layer of flavour to the dish. I hope you like it too!
Potato Salad with Fresh Turmeric
3-4 as a side salad
Ingredients
500g baby potatoes, halved
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 cups of green beans, topped and tailed and sliced into halves or thirds
1 small brown onion, finely sliced
2 tsp capers
About 2 inches of fresh turmeric, cut into thin matchsticks
For the vinaigrette
1 Tbsp malt vinegar
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1/4 tsp sugar
A pinch of salt
Method
Put the baby potatoes and vinegar in a medium saucepan and top up with water until the potatoes are fully submerged. Boil until the potatoes are soft when pierced with a knife (about 25-35 minutes). Drain and set aside.
Boil the green beans in another saucepan (with only water and a good pinch of salt). Boil for about 3-5 minutes, or until the beans are just soft. Drain and set aside.
Put the potatoes, beans, onion, capers and turmeric into a bowl.
Make the vinaigrette by blitzing all the ingredients together with a handheld blender. Pour this over the potatoes and beans, and toss gently to combine.
Serve warm or at room temperature, with a little extra salt and cracked pepper to taste.
