My friend Joyce recently made a heritage trip to Japan with her daughter. From luxury hotels to rustic ryokans, they savored the sights and tastes of Japan.
As dedicated foodies, Joyce and I talked a lot about Japanese food before her trip. While we were fascinated by the beauty and complexity of the kaiseki ryori haute cuisine for which Japan is famous, we also were intrigued by aspects of Japan’s yoshuku cuisine–Japan’s fusion food scene where foods like the egg salad sandos famously sold in Japan’s 7-Eleven Markets are enormously popular.
I savored every second of those food conversations; her trip was a vicarious food journey into a cuisine that is largely unfamiliar to me.
Fortunately for me, Joyce was willing to do a lot of food “research” on her trip–eating a lot of spectacular Japanese food and searching the markets of Kyoto and beyond for examples of foods like that Japanese egg salad sando that had caught our attention. (You can read about that sando search on Blue Cayenne here.) When she returned, she also introduced me to Japanese Nama Chocolate, a creamy melt-in-your-mouth chocolate confection to die for! (Hoping to find a doable recipe for that!!!)
In the last couple of months, Joyce and I have been playing with some Japanese recipes.Most recently, she brought me an elegant lunch feast of Ochazuke (green tea rice) accompanied by a glorious assortment of savory condiments and sauced with her mom’s miso “secret sauce.” Ochazuke, Joyce told me, was a dish she enjoyed at her mom’s table while growing up in Hawaii. The lunch she generously laid out on my table was elegant and delicious.
So, as I was casting about for new recipes to feature on Blue Cayenne this month, I had Japanese food on my mind and this Japanese Potato Salad with Cucumbers, Carrots and Red Onion recipe caught my eye. As I searched the topic on the Internet, I discovered that Japanese Potato Salad is an exceedingly popular dish there for bento picnics and lunchboxes. Who knew?
The slightly chunky mashed potato salad traces its origins back to the late 19th Century Meiji Period when Japan was opened up to western influences including western foods. In this case, Meiji chefs adapted the popular-at-the-time Eastern European Olivier (Russian) Salad to Japanese tastes. They subbed in Japanese mayonnaise, rice wine vinegar and fresh sliced cucumbers to great effect.
This Japanese Potato Salad recipe is adapted from a Serious Eats post. You can find the original post here.
Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.
Japanese Potato Salad With Cucumbers, Carrots, and Red Onion
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes (peeled, quartered, and boiled)
- Kosher salt
- 2 Persian cucumbers (thinly sliced)
- 2 t. rice wine vinegar
- 6 T. Japanese mayonnaise (I used Kewpie)
- 1/2 t. Japanese hot mustard (or more to taste)
- 1/4 t. black pepper (or to taste)
- 1 carrot (thinly sliced)
- 1/4 red onion (thinly sliced)
- 2 hard-boiled eggs (chopped)
- 1 green onion (white and green parts, chopped)
Directions
- Step 1 Hard boil eggs. Set aside.
- Step 2 Boil potatoes. Set aside.
- Step 3 Thinly-slice Persian cucumbers. I used a mandoline to slice the cucumbers. Put the slices in a bowl and sprinkle them with 1/2 t. salt. Let the cucumbers sit at room temperature for about half an hour to release some of their water. After the half hour, drain the sliced cucumbers and dry them (gently) on paper towels. Set aside.
- Step 4 Thinly slice carrots and red onion. I used a mandoline to slice the carrots and red onion. Chop the green onion. Set aside.
- Step 5 Prepare the salad dressing by whisking the mayonnaise, rice vinegar, hot mustard, and black pepper in a bowl. Set aside.
- Step 6 Put the cooked potatoes into a large bowl and mash them. You want your mashed potatoes to be a bit lumpy for this salad. Stir in the sliced vegetables. Fold in the dressing. Top with chopped eggs. Serve chilled or at room temperature.
