Friday, April 8, 2011

Spicy Blue (or Red) Potato & Corn Salad

Spicy Potato & Corn Salad, pg. 18
with mixed salad greens


First, the obvious. Those are not blue potatoes up there. I had no luck finding blue potatoes, so I went with baby reds, instead. The other minor substitution I made was shallots for red onions, because I used up all my red onion in last night's korma. Oh, and I took a lazy shortcut and used about a cup and a half of thawed, frozen sweet corn, instead of slicing the kernels from 3 ears of steamed corn on the cob.

Now, I don't want to seem disingenuous by gushing about practically every single recipe in this book, but seriously, again, this was super, duper good. The amount of chipotle called for gave immense flavor with just the right amount of heat. The pinto beans rounded everything out to make it a filling salad. When tasting the finished dish to determine if I wanted to add any more salt (no) or smoked paprika (yes), I found myself going back for more than one test bite. Maybe two, or three. Possibly four. Okay, maybe five. You know, to get it right.

For this recipe, Isa gives instructions to steam the potatoes, which I had never done before. I had always boiled potatoes before, when making a potato salad. The steaming technique turned out to be brilliant, however; the potatoes were tender while still firm, never mushy or falling apart.

This would be a great potluck dish; it's sure to impress folks.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am just stopping by to say hi! I am following your blog because I want to buy AFR soon. I want to lose 20 pounds in a few months and sometimes struggle to find recipes. Have you seen the Fat-free vegan blog? Lots of good recipes there.

Oh, and where did you find vegan English muffins?

Julie Ann said...

Hi Bethany, Thanks for stopping by. So far, I love AFR! I've already managed to lose a few pounds while eating delicious food - so I think you'll be very happy when you get your copy! I have seen the Fat Free Vegan blog, and yes, I agree: tons of great recipes! We made Susan's BBQ Seitan Ribz a few weeks ago for a cookout, and the whole family loved them.

As for the English muffins - I purchased Oroweat brand. As far as I can tell, most Oroweat products are vegan (Google tells me the mono- and diglycerides are vegetable derived). However, you caught me: being in a hurry this time at the store, I grabbed the 100% whole wheat, and didn't see until later that the whole wheat variety has honey listed in the ingredients. Oops. Other varieties of Oroweat English Muffins don't have the honey, but they're not whole wheat, either... .

I'll probably try making my own sometime; it's something I've always wanted to do, anyway. As it turns out, those mono- and diglycerides are probably not that great for us, either. You might want to read about it here:
http://www.imorganic.com/organiblog.php/?p=199

Alison Cole said...

I actually did make this for a recent potluck! Very good! I didn't, however, take out the chipotle pepper seeds as Isa says to do, and it turned out very hot (but good). Couldn't find blue potatoes either, so I also used red.

You might be interested in listening to the radio interview I did with Isa last month on this book, which you can download here: http://animalvoices.org/2011/03/vegan-cookbook-author-and-activist-isa-chandra-moskowitz-and-meatout-2011/

Julie Ann said...

Hi Alison - thanks for the link. I'll definitely check it out!