Korean Potato Salad With or Without a Pressure Cooker

You can keep your

because I have been craving my brand of KFC - Spicy Korean "Fried" Chicken- all week. They are like the sexiest little chicken nuggets on earth - all spicy, sweet and crispy. YUM



Traditional Korean Fried Chicken calls for double deep fried chicken served with or without and addictive, spicy/sweet gochujang sauce and, personally, I can't get enough of it.

Because I don't really like to deep fry at home all that much I usually "oven fry" my chicken and when I really want to make it even more comforting, I just make some boneless, chicken nuggets so that I don't have to wrestle with bones and all that comes with an intact chicken leg. Sometimes a girl just doesn't want to deal with tendons and skin.

My Spicy Korean "Fried" Chicken Recipe

Regardless of what style of KFC you like, you are going to need some potato salad, right? Since this is Korean Fried Chicken, it stands to reason that I am going to make Korean Potato Salad (Gamja Salad) to go on the side.  If you eat Korean food at all, you have probably had this salad as part of the banchan served before your main dishes and the only bad thing I can say about it is that they serve you a tiny little scoop that you are expected to share with the table. AS IF.

The main differences between North American potato salad and this gamja salad is that the potato is mashed and smooth and the dressing is sweeter. Use Kewpie mayonnaise if you can find it because it's a bit thinner and has more flavour than Hellman's but son't let the lack of Kewpie stop you as it's still going to be delicious either way.

 I LOVE the grated yolk on the top and, although it might not be the way the salad is served in Korea, I do love to hit it with a dash of Korean red pepper powder, Gochugaru. I also add sweet potato because I feel that it highlights the sweetness and it also gives it a lovely colour.

Regarding the use of a pressure cooker: you don't really need a pressure cooker to make this salad but any appliance that allows me to cook the potatoes right in there with the eggs, hands free, is A Okay with me. So, a pressure cooker makes this easy dish even easier but you can certainly go without.

Oh, and a note about adding cucumber - the flavour of the cucumber is essential, for me, but if you don't salt and drain it,  you will find yourself stuck with a big bowl of watery, soupy potatoes after it sits in the fridge for a couple of hours. If you don't want to salt and drain the cucumber you are better to leave it out but trust me, salt and squeeze out the excess water and be done with it because the cukes make it soooo much better.

Korean Potato Salad - Gamja Salad

1.5 lbs (680g) russet potato or half potato/half sweet potato, peeled and cubed in 1" chunks
3 eggs
*1/2 english cucumber, fine dice, salted and drained
2 scallions, finely sliced
3 radishes, quartered and sliced thinly
1/2 cup mayonnaise (Kewpie if you can find it)
2 tbls brown rice syrup or honey
salt and pepper

If you don't have an Instant Pot/Electric Pressure Cooker:
Cook the potato/sweet potato until soft like you would for mashed potatoes and you can make the hard boiled eggs in whatever manner you prefer - there are endless ways to make hard boiled eggs

OR
To use your Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker:
You can put the potatoes and the uncooked eggs in a steamer basket, set on a trivet, in your pressure cooker with 1 cup of water in the bottom of the pot. Cook for 4 minutes at HP with a quick release at the end of the cook time. Remove the eggs to an ice bath to cool down immediately and either run the potatoes through a ricer or roughly mash them and let them cool down.

* put the diced cucumber in a strainer and sprinkle with a tsp of salt, toss and let sit for about 10 minutes to draw out moisture and then squeeze out any excess. If you don't do this, your salad will get too watery.

Peel the hard boiled eggs and reserve two of the yolks and set them aside.
Finely chop the two remaining egg whites and one whole egg and add that to the potatoes, along with the cucumber, scallions, radishes, mayonnaise and the rice syrup or honey and a few grinds of pepper. Mix really well with a spatula, taste and adjust salt as needed. Put it in the fridge to cool and before serving, ice cold from the fridge topped with the yolks that you either grate  or press them through a fine mesh sieve.



Okay, I am going to make an admission here in the spirit of keeping it real:

Sometimes I don't feel like making the homemade  chicken nuggets so, on the recommendation of a chef friend, I tried using these Harvest Creek Chicken nuggets from Costco with my own sauce and they are delicious. I am not saying that you shouldn't make them from scratch, I am just saying that I am realistic and sometimes you have to do what you have to do and these are probably the tastiest pre-made chicken bites that I have tried.