Sonoko Sakai’s Potato Salada (Japanese Potato Salad)

This recipe is adapted from Sonoko Sakai’s Japanese Home Cooking: Simple Meals, Authentic Flavors, which we reviewed in June 2020.

Sakai’s wonderful dressing is based on homemade Japanese mayo and nerigoma — Japanese-style tahini, also homemade — with some rice vinegar, soy sauce and a few other things whisked in. If that seems like too much work, we have a hack: Use commercial mayo in place of the homemade Japanese mayo, swap commercial tahini for the nerigoma and add an extra teaspoonful of rice vinegar. We tried it and it was almost as awesome as the from-scratch version.

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

1 1/4 pound Yukon Gold potatoes

8 or 9 green beans, top ends trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces

2 medium carrots, sliced 1/4 inch thick

Pinch of sea salt

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 1/2 Persian cucumber, sliced 1/4 inch thick

For the Nerigoma Mayo Sauce:

1 recipe Nerigoma (Japanese-Style Tahini; recipe follows)

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons Japanese Mayonnaise

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice, or to taste

2 teaspoons soy sauce, or to taste

1/2 teaspoon cane sugar, or to taste

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Fresh dill, for garnish

Instructions

1. Place the potatoes in a medium pot and add salted water to cover by a few inches. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and cook until the potatoes are cooked through but still firm, 20 to 25 minutes. Drain and let cool.

2. Fill the same pot with fresh water and bring to a boil. Have a bowl filled with ice and water ready. Add a pinch of salt to the boiling water, then add the green beans and carrots and cook until they are al dente, about 3 minutes. Drain and transfer to the ice water to stop the cooking and cool. Drain and set aside.

3. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 3/4-inch pieces.

4. Make the Nerigoma Mayo Sauce: In a small bowl, combine the Nerigoma, mayonnaise, vinegar, lemon juice, soy sauce and sugar. Taste and adjust the flavors as needed.

5. In a serving bowl, combine the potatoes, green beans, carrots, celery and cucumber and toss with the dressing. Taste and adjust seasoning. Garnish with dill and serve.

Nerigoma (Japanese-Style Tahini)

Ingredients

1/2 cup hulled sesame seeds

2 tablespoons untoasted sesame oil

Instructions

1. Heat a medium dry skillet over medium-low heat. Add the sesame seeds, and heat, stirring constantly until the seeds become fragrant and lightly colored (but not browned), about 5 minutes. Be careful not to burn the seeds or the paste will taste bitter. Remove from the heat and transfer to the bowl of a food processor; leave them there to cool for a few minutes.

2. Process until a crumbly paste forms, about 1 minute. Add the sesame oil and process for 1 minute more, stopping to scrape the sides of the machine as necessary. Will keep for up to 2 weeks in a covered container in the fridge. If it separates, give it a good stir.

Recipe notes

• In her cookbook, Sakai’s recipe for Nerigoma makes twice as much — which you’ll want to do too, if you want some for another use. We cut the recipe in half, as that is exactly the amount called for in Sakai’s Potato Salada recipe.

• Sakai calls for boiling the potatoes in unsalted water. Our recipe adds salt to the water, so the dish needs little if any seasoning adjustment at the end. While Sakai called for cooking the potatoes over a low flame, we increased that to medium so they cook a little faster, but still with good texture.

• We tweaked some of the amounts of vegetables in Sakai’s recipe. Made as written, it was much more carrot-heavy than the photo of the dish in the book depicted (and it seemed like a lot of carrot to us), so we upped the potato a bit — along with the string beans and celery. We upped those rather than reducing the carrot because the dressing was very generous, and the potato salad was so delicious we’d rather have more than less. The resulting amount seemed just right for four servings.

• Sakai calls for cutting the potatoes into 1/2 X 2 1/12 X 1/4 inch pieces. That seemed unnecessarily precise, when the potatoes pretty fall apart somewhat when the salad is tossed. Three-quarter-inch dice works just fine, and more closely resembles the photo in the book.