Fall comforts: Warm potato and root vegetable salad

by Stefania Butler, Posted Sep 10th 2005 @ 4:53PM

I love potato salads of all types and just because the weather turns cold does not mean I stop eating them. Instead of mayo- or creme fraiche- or olive oil-adorned salads, I turn my attention to roasting various potatoes along with other root veggies for an autumnal twist on the usual. One of my favorites is this salad which I made after a recent farmer's market excursion. It is wonderful alongside roasted chicken or pork loin.

Warm Potato and Root Vegetable Salad

6 Yukon Gold potatoes (or similar weight in banana fingerlings or whatever variety you prefer), diced into large cubes
2 carrots, scrubbed but not peeled, diced into chunky batons
an onion, chopped
a head of garlic broken up and unpeeled
olive oil
one leafy green fennel stalk (for flavoring), save the bulb for another use (I used it for soup.)
very coarse salt and pepper
aged balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 350º. Place potatoes, carrots, onion, and garlic in a roasting pan and drizzle generously with olive oil. Toss. Sprinkle with coarse salt and grind pepper over. Lay the fennel stalk on top of veggies. Cover pan loosely with foil. Roast covered for 20 minutes then remove foil and roast a further 20-30 minutes. Remove from oven, discard fennel, and then drizzle veggies with balsamic vinegar—not too much—2-3 times around the pan with your thumb over the opening of the bottle so vinegar flows out in a thin stream. Toss, transfer to serving dish. Devour.

Parsnips, rutabagas, acorn or kabocha squash, and/or beets would also be very tasty in this, as would a mixture of different colored potatoes. Fresh parsley and/or thyme to garnish would also be yummy.

Filed Under: Budget Cuisine, Ingredients, Methods
Tags: dinner, roasting, vegetables