Basil Potato Salad

Are you sick of hearing about Passover/Pesach yet? Well bad news folks, Passover is not for another week, so y0u’ve got another two weeks of hearing about my Passover cooking. On the other hand, if you think it’s bad, imagine what kind of separation anxiety I am feeling for my best friend, er, I mean my Kitchen Aid.

I’ve been searching the web for interesting Passover recipe ideas, and I definitely am not coming up short. There’s a plethora of recipes out there, each one out-doing the next in terms of creativity and non-passover-like qualities. But I think the best Passover recipes are the simple things, the ones you can make by default, because they happen not to contain any grains. (Such as those I posted in my recipe roundup.)

I’ve noticed that my Smashed Potatoes, even though I posted them ages ago, have gotten quite some traffic lately. Want to know why? It’s simple. They’re delicious. They’re easy. And they’re completely doable for Passover. (Except, of course, if your custom – like mine- is to use no spices, and no garlic. Then you’re stuck.) Here’s another delicious potato recipe. It’s delicious any time, Passover or not. It happens to be Passover friendly, but it also happens to be delicious. Like, you should totally make this for a summer picnic kind of delicious.

Oh, and FYI: I hate potato salad. I know, it’s weird, cause I usually love anything carby, but I really can’t stand it. Something about the textures, the taste, or the combination of all of them. This is not a typical potato salad. In fact, it’s really only called a potato salad because I came up with the recipe at about 1 am, and my creative juices has run dry. Desperate, I scribbled “basil potato salad” in my little recipe notebook, and the name stuck.

If your Pesach custom is to use only vegetables that can be peeled, use larger red potatoes and peel them. If you don’t use Basil, I can’t help you.;)

Basil Potato Salad:

Ingredients:

15 small red potatoes (see note above)

1 large onion

2 cloves garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

9 basil cubes or 3 Tablespoons chopped basil* see below

1 1/2 teaspoons salt (to taste)

1/4 teaspoon black pepper (to taste)

Instructions:

Boil the potatoes in salted water until just tender. Drain the water and set potatoes aside.

While the potatoes are boiling, finely dice the onion and mince the garlic. Saute in olive oil on a medium flame. Add the chopped basil, salt, pepper. Saute until vegetables are limp and translucent. Cut potatoes into halves or quarters, depending on the size. Add the chopped potatoes to the vegetable mixture. Toss to coat the potatoes. Remove from heat.

Serve cold.

*Note about the basil- I used the frozen basil cubes, 3 equal a Tablespoon of chopped basil. If you are using fresh leaves, you should probably blend the leaves and the oil together, then proceed with frying the onion and garlic.

Enjoy!