Memorial Day: Purple Potato Salad Sous Vide

The side dish I decided to make this Memorial Day was a warm potato salad, but I didn't want to go for a standard German potato salad.  For the potatoes I picked up a bag of small purple potatoes at the supermarket, no reason, they were just on sale.

I usually have a water bath set up in the kitchen, but sice this was going to be a pretty hot bath I put a couple of sisal fiber placemats under the Cambro to protect the granite countertop.  I set the circulator to 90C and turned it on.

The potatoes were cut in to bite sized pieces and tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and granulated onion.  I smashed four garlic cloves and threw them in as well.  Everything was put in to a Foodsaver bag along with 2 tbs butter and vacuum sealed, then the pouch was placed in the still heating bath.  In order to allow the bath to heat up as quickly as possible a blanket was wrapped around the bath and dish towels laid over the top.  Once the bath hit 90C a timer was set for 30 minutes.  When the timer went off the pouch was retreived from the bath, cut open, and the potatoes were dumped in a colander placed over a bowl.  A vinaigrette was made by whisking the liquid drained from the potatoes with 2-3 Tb honey dijon mustard, about 1/4 cup olive oil and around 2 Tb white wine vinegar until an emulsion was formed, which was then tossed with the still hot potatoes.  Thinly sliced onion, diced Anaheim pepper, capers, chives and a little cilantro were folded in and the potato salad was covered and allowed to sit for 30 minutes for the flavors to marry.

This potato salad turned out really well, the potatoes were tender but not to the point of falling apart and because they were mixed with the vinegraitte when they were still hot they absorbed a lot of flavor.  By cooking the potatoes sous vide and incorporating the bag liquid in the vinegraitte all the potato flavor stayed where it belonged.  I'll be adding this recipe to the summer holiday rotation.