Potato asparagus salad gribiche

ecently on Pinterest I saw a pinned recipe for "potato salad gribiche," which I had never heard of. The note at the bottom of the pin said that gribiche = a sauce for potato salad made from a hard-boiled egg yolk. That sounded worth checking out to me (the girl with the egg cravings that almost match the cheese cravings), and I had no reason to doubt that definition of gribiche, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

A little research and minor digging around later, and I couldn't find a single recipe that made the potato salad dressing with a hard-boiled egg... every single one (in my initial research, I have since found a recipe that uses cooked eggs) I found called for making essentially a mayonnaise from raw egg. And apparently, I was not alone in that dilemma; many a finer cook than I has searched for said gribiche and come up empty... But somehow, that idea persisted in my brain. And so I had to try it...

The potato salad was a little twisty itself... just the way I like it. I thought the flavors would go well with an eggy dressing... and they did.

Potato-asparagus salad gribiche
serves 6 as a side
2 cups baby potatoes, halved, boiled and cooled
2 cups asparagus, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, roasted and cooled
1.5 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
6 eggs, hard boiled, yolks separated from whites and whites chopped up
1 large spring onion, diced fine

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.

Gribiche sauce, off the cuff
6 hard-boiled eggs
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped dill pickle
1 teaspoon chopped parsley
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar

Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. Mine was still a bit thick, so I added a bit of pickle juice to thin it, and add a wee bit of zip too, though a little more vinegar would have done that trick as well.

Pour the sauce over the salad ingredients and stir until fully incorporated. Let sit at least a half hour for flavor development.

I really enjoyed the flavors of this sauce, and felt that it really worked especially well with the asparagus and potato combination. I was a bit gratified to later discover Bobby Flay feels that way as well... hence his Grilled Asparagus Gribiche. And there are other versions out there with the sauce more coarsely chopped that my whizzed up version that I might have to try as well: The Wednesday Chef has a dish, as does Serious Eats (over steak, no less).

Anyone out there ever had gribiche? Hello, recent Paris people, did you run across this eggy wonder? Do tell!