Easy Chinese style potato shreds salad—a basic cold dish popular across the country.
You may find that recently I posted lots of super easy vegan dishes. That’s because we are having really hot days and meat is not so comforting in hot summer. I am eating more vegetables and fruits each day to help my body to cool down. Summer is really great for salads (yummy salads from the world). In China, we call salad as cold dishes as an opposite to hot dishes (stir-frying, steaming, and soups). In fact, we have lots of salads too in Chinese cuisine and they can be made either with meats or not. The famous Fu Qi Fei Pian is a cold dish made with beef and mouthwatering chicken is made with chicken.
This shredded Chinese potato salad super easy and taste good with breads, buns and pancakes.
Steps
How to shred the potatoes | peel the potatoes and the cut a thin slice off, using this side as bottom and stand your potato. Then cut the potato into large slices. Then lay the slices down and cut into fine shreds.
How to prepare the shredded potato for salad | wash the potato shreds firstly to remove extra starch attached. Then place the shredded potatoes in a large pot of boiling water. Cook for 1 minute, transfer out and soak in cold water. Those steps help to create a clean and crunchy texture.
How to assemble salad | mix shredded potato with coriander or other vegetable you prefer. Then mix in salt, sugar, light soy sauce and vinegar.
Then top with Sichuan peppercorn, dried chili peppers, green onion and chopped garlic. Then heat oil until smoky hot and drizzle the hot oil over the aromatics.
Other Summer Cold Dishes
- Lotus root salad
- Okra salad with black vinegar
- Kelp salad
- Chinese cold tofu salad
- Chinese smashed cucumber
- 2 middle size potatoes , finely shredded
- 1 small bunch of coriander , cut into sections
- 2 dried chili peppers , optional
- 1 tbsp. vegetable cooking oil , heated until hot
- 1/4 tsp. Sichuan peppercorn
- 2 cloves garlic , chopped
- 1 scallion , cut into smaller pieces
- 1 tbsp. black vinegar
- Pinch of salt
- 1/8 teaspoon sugar
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp. sesame oil
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Wash the shredded potato with a strainer under running water to remove extra starch and obtain a crunchy texture. Cook the shredded potato in a large pot of boiling water. Transfer out, soak in cold water until cooled and drain.
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In a bowl, mix shredded potato with coriander and then add salt, sugar, light soy sauce and vinegar. Mix well.
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Heat oil until almost smoky. Spread Sichuan peppercorn, ,green onion, dried chili pepper and chopped garlic. Pour the hot oil evenly on those three ingredients.
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Mix well and serve directly.
If you want a little spicy taste, add around 1 tablespoon of chili oil and reduce sesame oil accordingly.
Such a yummy dish! My mother used to make this for me as a child and it’s so great to be able to re-create it.
A couple of notes – I used a little bit of habanero oil (not Asian, I know, but my friend made it himself and I was dying to try it out) and I found the results to be great! The flavors work well together.
Additionally, I found that blanching them for 1 minute wasn’t quite enough to get them fully cooked, so ended up frying them a bit after. Found this made them remain crunchy (I was afraid blanching longer would make them not crunchy) and also helped to absorb the oil flavor.
Thank you for your lovely feedback and information.