Recipe | Chat potatoes + green beans + smoked trout + B ’n’ B pickle dressing

This is my favourite kind of late spring, early summer picky-picky potato salad, where fork-sized bits of everything good to eat and good for you come together with a dressing that’s a beneficiary of someone else’s good pickling handiwork. ‘Chat’ potatoes, as they’re known in Australia, are new-season baby potatoes that hold their shape well. Desiree would be perfect here, as would small kipflers (fingerlings), or any kind that will hold up against a gentle toss. If you can’t find chats, quarter a low-starch boiling potato.

Flavour-wise, there’s something a little naughties fillet-o-fish going on here. If you can’t find bread and butter pickles, you could instead use finely sliced dill pickles, gherkins or cornichons, or even piccalilli.

Serving the lettuce separately keeps it super crunchy against the creaminess of the other ingredients, and also invites san choy bow sandwiching behaviour, which is welcomed and encouraged.

— 

Serves → 4

Chop + stir → 10 minutes

Set + forget → 25 minutes

Ingredients

1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) small chat (new) potatoes, halved 

400 g (14 oz) green beans, topped, then torn or sliced in half

1 butter lettuce (or cos or oak leaf lettuce)

200–300 g (7–101/2 oz) hot smoked trout

1 small red onion, peeled, halved and finely sliced with the grain

250 g (9 oz) baby cucumbers, sliced into coins

1/4 bunch parsley, leaves finely sliced, stems finely chopped

1/4 bunch dill, fronds picked  (reserve some for garnishing)

Bread & butter pickle dressing 

1 heaped teaspoon hot English mustard

1 cup (245 g) sour cream

1/2 cup (40 g) bread and butter 

Pickles

— 

Method

Bubbly chats → Pop the potatoes into a large pot, three-quarters filled with well-salted water. Bring to the boil, then drop to a gentle simmer and set a timer for 15 minutes. 

In with the beans → Once the timer goes off, check that you can almost stick a fork through a spud, then toss in the green beans for another 3 minutes. Scoop out ½ cup (125 ml) of the water and reserve.

Drain and steam → Set a colander in the sink and drain the spuds and beans, then leave to steam-dry for 5 minutes or so while you get on with the salad.

Lettuce rejoice → Pick the butter lettuce leaves into your salad spinner or large bowl. Cover with plenty of cold water and leave to soak, draining and spinning (either in a spinner, or wrapped in a tea towel/dish towel and shaken or swung about) just before you’re ready to serve.

Get dressing → Scoop the mustard into a large mixing bowl. Splash in a few tablespoons of the hot potato cooking water and stir into a paste. Stir in the sour cream and pickles and taste for seasoning.

Flake the trout → Flake the fish on top of the dressing, feeling about for bones. (These are more of a bother with river trout; if you’re using ocean trout, no need to get too finicky.) 

Meet and greet → Transfer the dry hot steamed potatoes and beans to the dressing and trout bowl. Then top with the onion, cucumber, parsley and dill. Leave everything layered so the spuds can warm the dressing and fish. Just before serving, fold everything together to coat. Taste again to make sure the choir is singing in harmony.

Bring it home → Tumble the salad into a serving bowl. Top with the reserved dill fronds, a crack of pepper and some flaky salt. Serve the lettuce leaves in another bowl and allow eaters to help themselves.

—

Other recipes from Weeknights with Alice — 

Capsicum & cannellini panzanella tray bake

Hawker-style red curry eggplant noodle soup