Spring Baby Potato Salad with Broccoli and Radishes

Let’s talk about broccoli stalks.

How many of you buy a head of broccoli, cut off all the florets, and toss those thick, tough stalks in the trash or the compost bin? Can I get a show of hands out there?

I have a feeling most of you put your hands up. I know I did.

Until I met Tamar Adler’s book, An Everlasting Meal, that is. The subtitle of An Everlasting Meal is Cooking with Economy and Grace. It’s a series of essays about cooking locally, seasonally, and with great economy, meaning throwing away very little. There are a few recipes, yes, but most of it is rather poetic narrative, describing what Tamar might do, for example, with a free-range chicken, from roasting the parts to making paté with the liver to making stock from the carcass. She covers everything from vegetables to breads to meats to what makes a spectacular salad.

She got me thinking, of course.

Before L was born and we moved to D.C., I was invested in implementing Slow Food ways into my cooking. West Michigan is ripe with farmers’ markets, CSAs, milk shares, free range animal husbandry, and U-Pick farms. It was easy to incorporate local, seasonal, and close-to-the-earth foods into our meals. In D.C., there were far fewer options close at hand, and I got busy juggling marriage, an infant, and a full-time job. Dinner –  and the grocery shopping that leads to dinner – became more about ease than about local or sustainable, at least to some extent. Here in Memphis, I’ve been using Blue Apron for the past several weeks, and the reduction in grocery shopping has felt like a blessing, a weight off. Their produce is stellar, their recipes delicious. But.

Yes, but.

It’s spring-almost-summer. The farmers’ markets here are overflowing. Thanks to Tamar, I want to rediscover the things I loved so well before life became a crazy juggling act. I want to rise early on Saturday mornings, fill my market bags with fresh, sweet corn and blueberries bursting with flavor. I want to pull out my seasonal cookbooks and pile them on the counter where I can page through them when I get home, laden down with the produce that has never seen the inside of a Kroger.

I want to cook from the hip again.

So when my parents were here visiting a few weeks ago, and I was cutting florets from a head of broccoli to use in a pasta salad, I was all prepared to just toss the thick, green stalks in the trash can. And then. I didn’t. I bagged them and put them back in the crisper and spent the next 12 hours thinking about what I could do with them.

The next day for lunch, I made this minestrone soup. In place of the zucchini, I used diced broccoli stalk.

Friends, it was fabulous. The broccoli was tender and sweet, and smooth on the tongue.

E has been ribbing me about my penchant for “saving the planet one broccoli stalk at a time,” ever since.

He can laugh all he wants.

Last Saturday at the farmers’ market, I was drawn to the new potatoes, tiny Dutch golds with pearly skins, and to the bunches of radishes as bright as cherries, with their crisp, green leaves. I bought both. Last night, I combined them with the diced stalk of a head of broccoli in this potato salad I’m about to share with you.

It was all spontaneous, I promise you. I’d intended the potatoes for campfire-style packets on the grill. I’d thought the radishes would be nice with salted butter for lunch one day. But then, I wanted potato salad. I had no red onion on hand, so it seemed like the sharpness of the radishes would be a happy stand-in experiment. The broccoli just happened to be there, waiting for something to rescue it.

The potatoes were soft and fluffy. The broccoli was tender and sweet. The radishes, sliced paper-thin on a mandoline – added just a tiny bite. I modified my usual potato salad dressing just slightly by choosing different herbs, a classic Parisien blend rather than dill on its own.

And you know what? It worked.

Obviously, you don’t need to go out and buy a head of broccoli just to get the stalk for purposes of making this salad. But, you know, if you have a head of broccoli lying around, and you’d normally throw the stalk away, maybe think twice about it next time.

And when you do, cook this.

Spring Baby Potato Salad with Broccoli and Radishes

2 pounds new Dutch baby or redskin potatoes

1 large broccoli stalk

1 bunch radishes, leaves removed, sliced paper-thin (1/16″) on a mandoline, or as thin as you can get them with a sharp knife

1/2 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt

1/2 cup good mayo (here in the South, I use Duke’s; if you’re somewhere other than the South and you have access to Trader Joe’s, their homemade style mayo is excellent)

1 teaspoon mixed dried French herbs (chervil, basil, chives, tarragon – I like Penzey’s Bonnes Herbes blend – or you can mix your own)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon champagne vinegar

1/2 teaspoon dried dill

kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Wash and quarter (but do not peel) the potatoes . Dice the broccoli stalk. Place in a large pot with cold water to cover. Add a few pinches of salt. Bring to a boil, and continue to boil until both the potatoes and broccoli are fork-tender. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process.

Slice the radishes.

In a small bowl, combine the sour cream or yogurt, mayo, and herbs. Whisk together, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Toss everything together in a large bowl. Eat.

Enjoy this, friends!

Harmony