I Tried Curtis Stone’s Favorite Potato Salad and Did Not Expect These Results

Earlier this month, Insider talked to a handful of well-known cooks to see how they wish to prepare dinner their potatoes, and a recipe by Curtis Stone (a beloved chef, restaurateur, and television character) caught my eye. His recipe has you costume the spuds in scorching hen broth infused with shallots, caper, and cornichons (aka child pickles). I had by no means heard of anybody dressing their potato salad in a scorching dressing, not to mention a dressing made with hen broth, so I knew I wanted to strive it. I headed to my kitchen, bought some potatoes boiling, and gave it a strive.

Get the recipe: Chef Curtis Stone’s Favorite Potato Salad

Stone’s recipe is not like some other potato salad I’ve made, counting on scorching, infused hen broth to provide it its taste. To start out, you’ll peel Yukon gold potatoes and reduce them into chunks. Place them in a pot of chilly, salted water, deliver to a boil, and prepare dinner till tender.

As your potatoes are cooking, prepare dinner diced bacon till crispy, then switch it to a paper towel to empty off extra grease. In a small saucepan, deliver low-sodium hen broth to a simmer and add chopped shallots, chopped cornichons, and drained capers. Cook dinner on medium-low warmth till the shallots are smooth, then take away from the warmth and set it apart.

As soon as your potatoes are tender, drain them in a colander and provides them a couple of good shakes to take away as a lot water as doable. Switch the potatoes to a big bowl and add a few third of the recent hen broth combination. Gently fold the potatoes and broth collectively till the broth has been absorbed. Repeat this course of two extra occasions, including extra broth as wanted to maintain the potatoes moist.

Gently fold within the cooked bacon bits, some chopped parsley, and mayonnaise. Fold till evenly included, then season to style with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, at room temperature, or chilly.

Regardless of every little thing that went into it, this potato salad was underwhelming and tasted a bit flat. I attempted to assist it out by seasoning it with a beneficiant quantity of salt and pepper, however the taste was nonetheless fairly uninteresting and I wanted it had extra of a kick. Even just some cloves of garlic would have helped elevate it and add a pop of savoriness.

I additionally didn’t love the feel of this potato salad. Including the recent broth into the recent potatoes made the potatoes disintegrate, to the purpose of them beginning to flip into mashed potatoes. It was arduous to completely incorporate the entire elements with out damaging the potatoes an excessive amount of! Whereas they did take in the entire liquid, they didn’t essentially style any higher than an everyday boiled potato would have.

It wasn’t a unhealthy potato salad — in reality, I ended up consuming fairly a bit — nevertheless it was nothing particular. I’m not offered on the concept of including scorching broth to a potato salad, and can in all probability not be doing it once more the long run. As a substitute, I’ll follow my traditional mayo-based dressings.

Earlier than heading into the kitchen to make this potato salad, a couple of suggestions.

1. Use high-quality hen broth. The hen broth gives a lot of the taste within the dressing, so put money into a model that tastes good. You probably have a stash of selfmade broth in your freezer, that is the time to make use of it.

2. Don’t be afraid of salt. I discovered that this potato salad wanted fairly a little bit of salt for it to return alive, so don’t be afraid so as to add a reasonably beneficiant pinch whereas dressing it. Proper earlier than it’s time to serve, give it a style and regulate the seasoning as wanted.

3. Watch out to not overmix. My potatoes began to disintegrate and switch into mashed potatoes as I used to be mixing them, so watch out to not by chance smash them.

4. Be happy so as to add extra spices or mix-ins. I discovered the salad to be a bit bland, so be happy to jazz it up with some herbs, spices, garlic, or anything you want to add.

In the event you’re on the lookout for extra potato salad concepts, try out potato salad recipe battle to see who we topped the winner!

Have you ever ever made Curtis Stone’s potato salad? Inform us what you thought within the feedback!