Golden Purlsane Potato Salad: Better than Athlete's Foot Sandwiches.

This week's CSA delivery brought with it something called Golden Purslane. Having never heard of this soon-to-be-in-my fridge veggie, my hasty googling uncovered an interesting little NY Times piece on what is also known as "regelah" or "foot" in Hebrew from a few years back.  Admittedly, the pending arrival of a succulent weed with names that translated to "foot" in other languages, and the fact that it is often the discarded bane of many a gardener didn't exactly get me jazzed.

My natural skepticism had fully prepared me to chuck the "foot" flavored leaves into the "take 1 leave 1" veggie leftover bag when I got to the CSA pickup.  However, I could not in good conscience, orphan a veggie without a sample, especially since it turns out it's a rather cute veggie with leaves, stems, and bulbous little nubbins to boot.

Golden purslane leaves and grape-like nubbins for extra crunch.

I grabbed a quick nibble of a raw, plump leaf only to be delighted by an almost lemony flavored burst of leafy goodness.  The bite was accompanied by quite a bit of flavor, undoubtedly due to the fact that golden purlsane is a succulent, so its leaves are chock full of H2O, which in this case, packed extra lemony punch.  Turns out, though golden purlsane is unlike any green leafy veggie I've ever eaten, it's definitely not foot-flavored (though I'm not fully schooled in the many flavors of foot out there). In fact, it's quite delicious.

So what to do with my lemony foot crunch? My laziness over at the NY Times article presented an interesting sounding link to Russian Potato Salad with dill and purslane.  With a bunch of colorful potatoes around the kitchen, this sounded like it had potential, so I went ahead and threw this potato salad together opting for a Greek Yogurt-Mayonnaise combo base.

 Ingredients

-Golden Purslane, 1 bunch, washed
-Potatoes, I used colorful new potatoes
-Scallions, 2-3 sliced finely
-Mayonnaise, 1/4 cup
-Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup
-Capers, 2 spoonfuls
-Fresh dill, half a handful chopped finely
-juice of 1 Lemon
-Loads of fresh pepper

Potato Salad Protocol

1. Boil washed, chopped up potatoes in water until soft (about 10 min).
2. Mix all ingredients in a big salad bowl. I used only the leaves and nubbins of the purslane and left out the stems which are extra lemony. I think a little stem action couldn't hurt, but beware too much lemony foot flavor :)
3. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Extreme close up of the final product.

Afterthoughts

 I love a good crunch in any meal. Onions and potato chips are my go-to essentials when I'm looking for crunch, but the purslane really did a nice job of tricking out the potato salad. I'm quite fickle when it comes to potato salad (or any summer salad with mayo for that matter) - too much mayo or too mushy a texture and I'm likely to trash it, but the amount in this salad is Goldilocks just right, and the purslane offsets the cream base with its mild acidity and crunch.  It might go well with tuna/chicken/egg salad as well, either mixed in, or as the "lettuce" on a sandwich. I enjoyed the 'tater salad as an accompaniment to a portobello burger bathed in blue cheese....mmmm...

Summer delights: portobello burger + 'tater salad.