PICNIC POTLUCK
Friends and family will appreciate these simple, classic, homemade dishes
Deirdre was invited to a picnic. Deirdre went to the grocery store and bought a plastic tub of potato salad. Everyone else brought homemade food and regarded Deirdre with barely concealed contempt.
Don’t be Deirdre.
It’s picnic season again. Even people who are not good cooks can take this opportunity to avoid embarrassment by making their own dishes for the occasion.
I’m not talking about anything fancy or difficult. It doesn’t have to impress. All your friends and family will be appreciative if it just comes from your own hands.
Let’s stick with the basics, the simple staples that are welcomed at every picnic and potluck: potato salad, coleslaw, pasta salad, egg salad and chicken salad.
For potato salad, I always use red potatoes; their firm texture holds up best to boiling, their skins add just the right astringent note to balance the richness of the mayonnaise, and their taste is the best to play off the other ingredients.
More important, though, is the vinegar. Potatoes by themselves are bland, but these are greatly enlivened by being tossed in red wine vinegar with salt and pepper while they are still warm. The potatoes absorb the seasoned vinegar to become bright, lively and delightfully invigorating.
Classic chicken salad is similarly easy to make. I begin by poaching boneless, skinless chicken breasts and chopping them up with celery, green onions, parsley, mayonnaise and, for a little sprightly pep, a couple of splashes of lemon juice.
So far so good. But I like my classic chicken salad with a classic
twist, a sprinkling of fresh tarragon that really wakes up the flavors. Fresh basil will do the same.
Curried chicken salad takes the same basic idea and builds on it. It begins with curry powder, obviously, though not very much of it — the curry is more a hint than an assault. Halved grapes deliver a hit of contrapuntal sweetness, and toasted sliced almonds add a burst of enjoyment in nearly every bite.
The classic egg salad is, as its name implies, classic. It’s simple, clean and basic: chopped eggs with mayonnaise, red onion, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and parsley.
I happen to prefer creamy coleslaw, which is to say coleslaw with mayonnaise, to sweet and sour coleslaw, which has vinegar and sugar. But the kind I like to make is surprisingly complex precisely because it is made with, yes, vinegar and sugar. It just has less vinegar
and sugar than the sweet-and-sour version. Plus mayo, of course.
It also benefits from a clever trick, courtesy of the folks at America’s Test Kitchen. Before making the slaw, you toss the shredded cabbage with a little salt and let it sit for an hour or more. Cabbage has a lot of water in it, and this method draws some of that water out, leaving more good cabbage flavor behind.
And what is a picnic without pasta salad?
I like to make mine with fresh ingredients: tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and chopped oregano for just the right amount of spice. But to be honest, kalamata olives and crumbled feta cheese make this pasta salad stand out from others.
It’s a pasta salad with a decidedly Greek sensibility, the strong flavors mixing with pasta to please everyone at your picnic or potluck and make you the star.