27 May 2015

Une salade plus ou moins « piémontaise »

If you've ever eaten more than a few times in Paris cafés or brasseries, you've probably come across or even ordered what's called a salade piémontaise. It's a standard item, like carottes râpées, salade de betteraves, or céleri rémoulade. You can also buy it ready-made in French supermarkets. I decided to make a salade piémontaise the other day, using ingredients I had in the fridge and pantry.


Salade piémontaise is a potato salad. The piémontaise in its name refers to the northern Italian region of Piemonte, but there is some doubt that the salad actually originated there. France controlled that region for more than 50 years in the 19th century, and somehow this salad got the name. The main ingredients are potatoes, cornichons (pickled gherkins), ham, hard-cooked eggs, and tomatoes. The dressing is a mixture of mayonnaise, mustard, and yogurt (or cream).


I've seen recipes that called for saucisses de strasbourg cut into chunks, or lardons fumés, or even chunks of cooked chicken breast, instead of ham. All that sounds good to me. The things you can't really leave out or substitute for seem be the potatoes, the cornichons, the eggs, and the creamy white dressing. If tomatoes are in season, they're standard too.

Hard boil the eggs by putting them into a pot of cold water, bringing it to the boil, and then turning off the heat and letting the eggs sit in the hot water for about 10 minutes. They won't be overcooked.

Tomatoes aren't in season yet, so I substituted some roasted red bell peppers, cut into largish pieces. And in the refrigerator we had two little Spanish chorizo sausages that we had grilled a couple of days earlier. They replaced the ham.

The dressing was half a cup (120 milliliters) of plain yogurt or liquid cream, the same quantity of mayonnaise (from a jar), a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, a squirt of cider vinegar, and a few drops of Worcestershire sauce, with some salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Stir it all together well. Thin it slightly with water to make it pourable.




I remember first discovering salade piémontaise when I was a student in Aix-en-Provence and in Paris way back in the 1970s. I was happy to find a potato salad like this one, because I missed the American potato salads I — we all — had grown up with. And the fact is, French potatoes are so good and creamy, but they don't fall apart in the creamy dressing. Cook them in a steamer for the best result.


American potato salads are usually yellow, because one ingredient of the dressing is bright yellow "ballpark" mustard. Not this one. Try not to overdo the dressing, actually. It's better thinned down enough that you can pour it on and let it just barely coat the salad ingredients. Put the eggs on top and try not to break them up by too much stirring. Avocado on the side or cut up and added to the salad is good too.

17 comments:

  1. I've never heard of salade piémontaise, but, of course, I very seldom go to cafés. Can't remember when I was in a brasserie parisienne the last time! It looks pretty good and it seems easy to prepare.

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    1. You know me and my food memories. In August 1998, you and I had lunch in a restaurant in the Cotentin with Jeanine and Andrée. What town was it? I had a salade piemontaise as my first course that day.

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    2. Was it the day we went to the château de Pirou? That day we went through Créances, Carrot Capital of the World!

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    3. Yes, the day we went to Pirou. What town was that old-fashioned restaurant in? We went to Saint-Germain-sur-Ay and also to Lessay that day, didn't we?

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    4. We didn't go to Lessay in 1998. Really can't remember were we had lunch that day and much less what was on my plate! I went to Lessay in 2002, and Coutances, with Frank, Jeanine and Yolande and you weren't there.

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    5. I think we did go to Lessay in 1998, but not with J and A. It might have been the day we left Carteret to drive to Rouen. With J and A we went to Crosville-sur-Douve. Maybe lunch was in St-Sauveur-le-Vicomte.

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    6. Bonjour vous deux,
      Ken, Merci pour la recette
      Cousin you are like Y ; good memory with dates and specific locations but not for food.

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    7. N., I think CHM has a really good memory for food he likes or has liked over the decades. We often try to re-create those foods when he visits.

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  2. Hilarious that you remember your first course from a meal in 1998 :)

    I love potato salad with creamy dressing, and I HATE the kind with bright yellow mustard. Too much vinegar taste. Yours looks yummy.

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    1. I'm like that, Judy. Walt is too, to an extent. Ask him about the first time he ate chicken gizzards.

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  3. Ah food memories, I have so many because my family cooked only the basics. So traveling to Europe at age 15 gave me lots of new sights and tastes. Remembering my first taste of spinach noodles with bolognese sauce in Verona is still a vivid memory. Back home, the only Italian I knew was Chef Boyardee.
    I've never had salade piémontaise, but it is now on my list.

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    1. I remember how the food in Aix-en-Provence in 1970 had such amazing flavors. Food in NC was already really gpood, but in Aix... it's hard to know what made it so good. In Paris too. Eggs tasted better. Butter too. Peas. Pork. It was like I had nevet really tasted those foods before.

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  4. When my brother and my bel-soeur visited you and Walt just after you made the move to France, I recall teasing my bel-soeur because her repeated cry upon tasting anything and everything was " this is the *best* ... beet, bread, cheese, coffee, pastry, wine... you name it. It was a wonderful trip. It is amazing to see what you two have done with the house, yard, your lives since those early days.

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  5. Oh to be there and having that salad for lunch right now.
    although I guess I can copy the salad but there is no copying where you are :)

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  6. I have fond food memories, too. Sometimes, the meal is just really remarkable and with a different taste than anything I have ever tasted. I just have to again tell you, Ken, how wonderful a job you do in "setting up" the plate you are preparing from the beginning all the way to the end! Great photos, easy to understand and then I WANT to follow at home!!! Merci

    Mary in Oregon

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