Potato Salad with Parsley, Capers, and Olives

Two days before Thanksgiving saw me recipe testing for the blog and a PopMatters.com review. Not one but two recipes failed.

(Hey! A link! Thanks to my lovely spouse, who set me straight here, on my overdue links page, and helped me make my Facebook page prettier.)

Recipe fails happen. Many are the reasons: ovens differ. Should you live in America but have before you an English cookbook, there may be troubles with oven temperature or confusion over ingredients: many Americans are flummoxed by “caster sugar”, “digestives”, or “bicarb.”  I have half a dozen cookbooks by an English author whose savory recipes are marvelous; her cakes never work in my kitchen. She uses a solid fuel cookstove while I limp along with Sears Kenmore, grateful it’s gas.

Then there was the time I reviewed the baking book from the hottest, hippest Brooklyn bakery. Recipe after recipe tanked. Panicked, I bought an oven thermometer. The oven was true. Eight pounds of flour and several disasters later, I realized the recipes had  been tested in the bakery’s professional ovens instead of a home kitchen. Throwing up my hands, I hoped for a tax write-off.

Of course, there’s always plain screwing up, though the recipes I was attempted were simple and I took every care. Alas, it mattered not. Failure was the order of the day,  one recipe becoming an awful Nigella Nutella Brownie goo, the other–more on this later–a pile of greasy crumbs.

Above: Nigella Nutella Fail.

I poured a bourbon, iced my tendontic arm, and made potato salad.

This potato salad comes courtesy of The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook, via chef Carlo Middione. His recipe is entitled “Insalata di Patate con le Capperi e Olive Neri.” I’ve fiddled a bit here, but there was no need: the original is marvelous.

Although it’s entirely possible to make this using leftover mashed potato, something you might still have around right now, this is better made fresh. And chances are, with the holidays upon us–depending on your inclination, either yawing like an existential pit or hovering like a joyful dream, illuminated red and green–you’ll be asked to bring a dish somewhere soon. And this potato salad, whether you align with Camp Sartre or subscribe to Martha Stewart Living, is a nice option. It keeps well, won’t poison anyone when left at room temperature, and is gluten-free, a boon for true celiacs and those currently aboard the anti-wheat train.

The secret to this potato salad–apart from its brightly punchy taste–is the half-cup of boiling potato water added in. Don’t skip it.  It’s little tricks like these that separate great chefs like Carlo Middione from the slobs in the Insufficient Kitchen.

Middione’s recipe calls for anchovies. When I’m making this just for the two us, I use them. But the poor anchovy is such a polarizing ingredient–even when indiscernible–that it’s best left out if this salad is to travel. And it’s got much else going for it–olives, capers, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic–that sacrificing the anchovies doesn’t feel so sacrificial, after all.