Potato salad is one of the dishes taken from the Western canon that’s become an essential in Japanese home cooking. It’s also a regular izakaya and yoshoku restaurant dish, from cheap and cheerful to high-end. Chefs tend to have a signature house potato salad, and mine is usually made with iburi gakko — a smoked rice bran pickled daikon. But potato salad can also be used as a satisfying way to enjoy the season, as the salads at Café 2001 tend to.
With that in mind we don’t use mayo in this one. Good mayo is divine but also envelopes all. This salad should be vibrant like the color and the moment of early spring.
This holds well until the next day and can also be made into croquettes.
At the cafe, I use potatoes from Weiser Farms and peas from Tutti Frutti, pea shoots and olive oil from Shear Rock — all available at the Sunday Hollywood Farmers Market.
