This warm baby potato salad with herbs, smoked trout and horseradish dressing is a must

Tuck into this warm potato salad with herbs, smoked trout and a horseradish crème fraîche dressing, finished with trout roe that bursts in your mouth.

It only feels right that my Easter recipes this year start with potatoes. Picture: Nikki To

Easter is wrapped up in so many ­flavours – chocolate eggs, hot cross buns, lamb roasts, Good Friday fish – but for me, it’s always been about ­potatoes. Every Easter growing up, we’d head to the Burrawang Easter Market, one of the highlights of the calendar in NSW’s Southern Highlands. The main street would close, with stallholders lining the road with all the classics – fairy floss, egg and bacon rolls, country fudge, locally made jams and every sort of craft and hand-knitted treasures imaginable – but, most importantly, the spud cart.

Burrawang sits right next to Robertson, a town famous for its potatoes, thanks to its rich, fertile soil. My Mum, who had no interest in gardening, used to joke that she could grow anything in her garden there – and she really could, it was magic. It’s so well known for potatoes that it’s home to the Big Potato, a local landmark that, depending on who you ask, looks like a potato or something else entirely (but I won’t get into that here).

   

At the Burrawang Easter Market I would make a beeline for the stall shaped like a satellite, aptly named Spudnik’s (geddit?), which served Robertson’s finest, roasted to crisp-edged, fluffy-centred perfection then topped however you liked. For me, it was always the same: butter, sour cream, chives and flakes of smoked trout. On a crisp Southern Highlands morning, that hot potato, steaming in my hands, was pure comfort.

So it only feels right that my Easter recipes this year start with potatoes. This one’s a little more grown-up than my childhood market spud – a warm baby potato salad with herbs, smoked trout and a horseradish crème fraîche dressing, and finished with trout roe that bursts in your mouth. This is a dish worthy of your Easter entertaining table. Dressing the potatoes while they’re hot helps them soak up all the flavours, but let them cool slightly before adding the herbs; too soon and they’ll wilt and lose their brightness.

It’s worth hunting out good potatoes for this. I love baby kipflers. Look for ones that are consistent in size. I scrub them and leave the skin on. I like to serve this salad warm, but it’s also excellent at room temperature.

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Warm baby potato salad with herbs, smoked trout and horseradish dressing

Ingredients

700g baby potatoes such as baby kipfler, larger ones cut in half lengthways and smaller ones left whole


Salt


1-2 lemons


80ml (⅓ cup) olive oil


1 teaspoon white wine vinegar


½ garlic clove, grated or minced


2 tablespoons capers in vinegar, drained


1 bunch (½ cup) chives, finely chopped


½ bunch (½ cup) dill, roughly chopped


120-180g hot smoked trout fillets, flaked

2 tablespoons trout roe, optional

Dressing


125g crème fraîche


1-2 tablespoons lemon juice


4cm piece fresh horseradish, or 1-2 tablespoons horseradish from a jar

Fill a large saucepan with water and season generously with salt (about 1 tablespoon). Add the potatoes and place the pan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low and simmer for 12-18 minutes, or until a knife slides through with little resistance. Getting the right texture is important here: no one wants undercooked spuds, nor do they want them mushy. Drain the potatoes in a colander and leave them to steam dry for a few minutes.

In a large bowl, zest in 1 whole lemon and then add lemon juice; you’re looking for about ¼ cup (60ml). Add the white wine vinegar, garlic, capers and olive oil. Season with a good pinch of salt flakes and freshly ground pepper. Combine and taste; it should be quite zingy to stand up to the potatoes. Add your hot potatoes and toss well. Leave to cool slightly. You want them cool enough to pick up, so they’re not going to wilt the herbs.

While your potatoes are cooling, make your dressing. Add the crème fraîche to a bowl with lemon juice and horseradish to taste. I like mine punchy, but it’s personal, so tweak it to your liking. Season with salt and pepper and mix well. You want a pourable consistency; if necessary, mix in 1 tablespoon of water.

To serve, flake the trout over the potatoes, add the chives and dill and toss well. Transfer to a platter, then drizzle over the horseradish cream with a kiss of olive oil. Serve extra dressing on the side. Dollop over the trout roe if using. Serves 4