Why I Eat Potato Salad Every Week (Gut Healthy)

In today's video we're giving potato salad an upgrade, first with this fragrant courage potato salad with toasted coconut and spring onion and then with a warming harissa and preserved lemon potato salad with roast pepper and cucumber to cool that lovely spice. Now you probably don't think of potato salad as being a health food but you'll be surprised to hear that these salads offer some great benefits for your body and in particular your gut. So if you love delicious flavour-packed recipes be sure to stick around as I upload them weekly and let's get into the cooking. First up is this creamy curried potato salad which I used to make on a deli back when I lived in the city and it would always sell out. So I've got some lovely baby potatoes here, some of them are absolutely tiny, very cute little potatoes but that does mean I'm going to need to cut down some of these larger ones so that they will cook nice and evenly. Pretty much every time you want to cook potatoes from cold water this ensures that they cook evenly rather than having the outsides cook before the insides. You also want to season the water heavily to ensure the potatoes are seasoned from within, of course not all this salt is going to be absorbed by the potatoes. Just give them a quick mix to make sure the salt is distributed through the water. Since we're going from cold water I'm going to pop a lid on so that it comes to a simmer nice and quickly. I'm actually going to add just a few curry leaves into here to sort of fragrance the water. Now I understand if you don't want to cook with oil you can just bloom these spices in some water, that's absolutely fine. Personally I've always cooked with oil and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon plus I exercise quite a lot so I need all the calories I can get or I might just sort of disappear. While those potatoes cook we're going to temper our spices so I'm just heating up this pan over a low heat. We'll then add a tablespoon of olive oil or water then I'm adding in some whole spices, I've got cumin seeds, mustard seeds and nigella seeds and then once the mustard seeds start popping everywhere you can add in your curry powder and switch off the heat now. I've switched off the heat so the curry powder doesn't burn, just adding two teaspoons of that. Although there is turmeric in the curry powder I'm adding a little bit extra just to give the potato salad that lovely golden colour and we'll just leave the lovely infused oil to cool now. Little potatoes are simmering away now and I'll cook them gently for about probably 12 to 15 minutes as they are fairly small. Just simmering lightly, you don't want them boiling ferociously as that can make the skin sort of blister and go all fluffy. Okay I think these potatoes are just about done, if you find the biggest one and give it a little squeeze and if it feels sort of tender and almost like it's going to burst open then you're good to go. I suspect if I get one of the smaller ones and give it a squeeze, yeah it will just burst open. Drain your potatoes and just let them steam dry. So Poppy's favourite snack is currently carrot. Good catch Poppy! Good girl! Toast the coconut, just heat a pan over a low heat with no oil and add in your coconut. Give it a little toss every now and again to ensure it doesn't burn, it'll go golden brown really suddenly so keep an eye on it after that. And there you've got a lovely crunchy and nutty topping ready for the potato salad. I'm going to be using a soy yogurt on this potato salad instead of mayonnaise firstly because I like the lighter and sort of tangier flavour and secondly for those probiotics which are great for your gut. For the dressing we'll start with the yogurt, I'm using a soy-based one but you're welcome to use any yogurt that you like or mayonnaise of course, it will be a little bit more indulgent. Then go in with your tempered spice mix, make sure you get it all in there, using a spatula helps, and some lemon juice. I'll also add a little crack of black pepper and a small pinch of salt. Since we seasoned the water that the potatoes cooked in we won't need too much salt. I would definitely recommend getting yourself a nice heat resistant spatula like this one, super handy. And then just give this a good whisk until it's all nicely combined, should go a lovely golden colour and I like to add the dressing while the potatoes are still slightly warm as it just helps them really absorb those flavours and then we'll just give that a really good mixing up. Now you can either keep the potatoes whole or you can just give them a light crushing which is what I quite like to do, just helps them absorb the dressing even more. Probably should have done this before putting on the dressing to be honest. This is looking and smelling absolutely beautiful, really excited. I'll set this aside just for a minute, it's going to absorb all these lovely flavours and spices. Did you know that letting potatoes cool after you've cooked them creates resistant starch and this feeds the healthy bacteria in your gut? Not only that but it can also reduce the blood sugar spike that you can get from eating potatoes and if you leave the skin on then you get the bonus extra fibre. I've got some spring onions here to add a nice bit of oniony crunch to this salad to contrast against the creamy dressing. The bottom white part I'm just going to finely chop into little rounds and then we'll make a nice little garnish with the top greener part. So for the garnish we're just going to thinly slice it lengthways, as thin as you can go essentially, the thinner the better. This is optional but it is quite a nice little trick and it looks really good and then I've got some ice cold water and we're just going to add these in and they're going to go lovely and crispy and almost sort of twirl up and I'll just pop these in the fridge for a few minutes. I'm also going to add some lovely fresh and lemony coriander so just bunch it up, stalks and all, and we'll finely chop it. A couple of cross chops just to finish it off. Cross chop meaning you just put your hand over the blade and you're just going to rock through the herbs like so. Okay so I just filmed adding in the coriander, some of the coconut and the spring onion but of course I didn't press play on the record, classic. But that's all good, I'm sure you guys can work that bit out, we just mixed it all through and now we're ready to serve. And our spring onion garnish is ready now so I'm just going to pull it out of the water and dry it off. Really nice twirls of spring onion. Okay load up a plate or bowl with those beautiful curried potatoes, then a sprinkle of the fresh coriander, lovely golden toasted coconut, get a really crunchy topping almost, and then finally the spring onion. And there you go, that is a lovely fragrant curried potato salad with a toasted coconut topping. Enjoy! Oh that's so good! This certainly beats your regular potato salad, it's vibrant, it's fresh, it's got a nice sort of back warming note of the curry spices and then occasionally you'll bite into like a cumin seed or mustard seed and get another pop of spice. Really tasty, give this a go and let me know what you think. Potatoes are the perfect accompaniment to bold flavours such as harissa, this spicy North African chilli paste. Their natural starchiness absorbs the spices making every mouthful soft, creamy and packed with flavour. The preserved lemon, I'm just going to cut it into quarters and remove the pith and seeds. Slide your knife just above the skin and it should come off really easily. These are really nice and salty, tangy, slightly sweet, really tasty and then we'll just slice these segments into little batons, thin strips, batons, and then just give them a quick mince, finely chopped. If you don't want to use preserved lemon you can use some lemon zest, it'll just be a bit more fresher rather than sort of tangy and salty. For this salad we'll be using lovely nutty and creamy tahini but it also has some great nutrients in it, it's full of B vitamins, vitamin E and important minerals such as magnesium, calcium and iron and as an extra benefit it's got 17 grams of protein per 100 grams. So while the potatoes are cooking we're going to make our tahini and harissa sauce or dressing, starting of course with some tahini. This is my favourite brand of tahini, it's called Bella Zoo, really nice and nutty and creamy, perfect for a potato salad. In goes our preserved lemon or lemon zest. For the harissa I'm also using the Bella Zoo brand, it's really lovely, smoky, sort of fruity from the chillies. I'm going to add a touch of maple syrup as tahini can be slightly bitter from the roasting process. Some olive oil, this is optional but it just makes it really lovely and sort of luxurious. Lemon juice for acidity, a good grating of black pepper. You could gently fry the harissa first to release its flavours but since we're going to put it on the potatoes while they're warm I think it should be okay and then a pinch of salt. And now we'll whisk in cold water, a tablespoon or two at a time. It's going to be an amazing sort of golden red colour, this sauce. Once you've got a lovely thick and smooth sauce, well other than the preserved lemon, make sure you give it a taste, that's really important. Whenever you're cooking always taste as you go along because otherwise how are you going to know what it's going to taste like at the end? Oh that's good, a little bit of heat, creaminess, just got a little burst of the preserved lemon. I think it needs a touch more acidity and a little pinch of salt, just a small pinch. And I've got some lime left over here so I'm going to add a squeeze of that and I think that's going to be perfect now. I cooked these potatoes in the exact same way as I did for the curried potato salad. These potatoes are so lovely, they're like buttery soft, amazing. And then pour over that sort of beautiful roasted pepper coloured sauce, that's going to be amazing. Use your spatula once again to get it all out and I think I'm going to keep these potatoes whole instead of sort of crushing them like I did previously. And then we'll give them a mix and then set them aside while we prepare a couple more ingredients. Did you know that cucumbers are close to 95% water so they're going to add a lovely refreshing touch to the salad which will help cool the spice from the harissa. So just cut that lengthways, I've got a nice little baby cucumber here and we'll just remove the seeds just so the cucumber doesn't sort of water down the salad, we just want the nice firm flesh. Don't worry, I'm not going to throw these away, a nice little refreshing snack. And then we'll just simply dice this into small cubes, roughly maybe a centimetre by a centimetre. I'm just going to use half a cucumber for this recipe. Next I've got one of these lovely jarred roast peppers and I'm going to cut them to a similar size as the cucumber. So into strips and then I'll just quickly dice them. These have been charred so they've got a nice smoky flavour which will compliment the harissa. Then we've got some chives, these are going to be mixed through and then also sprinkled on top which we'll just finely chop. These are going to add a nice freshness, a little bit of crunch, oniony flavour and then for even more crunch and nuttiness, I'm going to add some roasted hazelnuts and I'll just give them a quick bash. I'll just give them a quick bash in the pestle and mortar, you can chop them as well if you want. And then most of the chives, just keep some back to be sprinkled on top and then just mix all this through. This bowl is rather full. I need to serve up quickly as my girlfriend is getting hungry and we're going to be enjoying both these potato salads. Sprinkle over a few of those roasted hazelnuts, that's a lovely crunch, and the last of those chives. And that is my spicy and creamy harissa potato salad with lovely roasted hazelnuts and chives. God, I love potatoes. Now that's a winner, that one. This one is an absolute favourite of mine, the creaminess and the nuttiness of the tahini really does compliment the spices from the harissa. I'm going to get little fresh bursts of cucumber and roast pepper, this sort of cools things down and then finally, nice nutty crunch from the hazelnuts. Absolutely delicious, really hope you guys enjoy this one. You're definitely going to want some tofu recipes to go alongside these delicious potato salads so check out this video.