Salad with herring and small potatoes

As much as I like to complain about how expensive the Dupont Circle farmer's market is (6+ dollars for a single tomato??), there are plenty of reasons why I go back as often as I can. Last weekend, I found the most beautiful head of lettuce there for only 3 dollars. Compared with the 4-5 bucks you can spend for a few ounces of organic bagged greens that goes bad in a few days, this is totally worth it. In fact, I've stopped buying pre-bagged salads altogether in favor of this technique. Now, I am much happier with the quality of my greens and my salad budget.



The single head of lettuce took up my entire salad spinner and lasted several salads. (Next to the spinner is a bunch of Erba Stella, which is an Italian herb with a light, savory taste -- I highly recommend sauteing it with a little garlic in pasta or tossing it in a salad for some color contrast against some beautiful Boston lettuce) One of the salads I made more than once is this one, which was adapted from a recent Serious Eats post. I used canned herring instead of tuna because I like the texture and flavor of the former much much more but you can use pretty much any canned fish you'd like.



I really like this salad because it's refreshing yet filling. It also reminded me of how much I like capers, which I now add to pretty much everything I can think of. The warm potatoes and fish make it a meal without it being heavy. If you boil extra potatoes and keep it in the fridge and like to stock up on canned herrings (TJ's brand is quite good) like I do, this salad is very quick to throw together with a few modifications and not much fuss.

Salad with herring and small potatoes
Adapted from Serious Eats

1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 pound small or fingerling potatoes, well scrubbed
1 can of herring or tuna, packed in oil
3 tbs red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tbs capers
Salt and pepper
Your preferred bed of salad greens -- I like a mild lettuce mixed with a handful of arugula for this particular salad

In a small pot, put potatoes in salted boiling water until almost done. In the mean time, in a medium-sized bowl, use a fork to break the fish up into bite-sized pieces (You can choose to save or discard the canned oils depending on how you like the taste. If you save it, just add less olive oil to your salad). Add the onion and carrots and cook together until potatoes are tender and easily pierce-able with a fork. Drain the pot's contents and slice the potatoes. Toss the just cooked potatoes, carrots, and onion with the fish along with the vinegar, oil, capers, salt and pepper. Serve on a bed of greens.

Makes 2 main course salads.