Summer potato salad recipe by Tarunima Sinha

Every summer table needs a good potato salad. This one is mine. As a vegetarian, when invited to a barbecue I often leave hungry. Most of the time, there is only a potato salad hiding in a blanket of mayonnaise or some corn on the cob as the vegetarian option. At my home, potato salad is creamy yet fresh and zingy, packed with lots of herbs, capers and lemon. Small new potatoes are steamed or boiled whole with their skins on, then just halved. No peeling needed.

The dressing is lighter than the traditional creamy potato salad and goes well with almost anything on the summer table, eaten on its own or with some grilled fish or meat. The mustard, capers and dill really add so much flavour to the humble potato. I hope this salad becomes your summer essential too.

Serves 4-6 as side dish
new baby potatoes 2kg (preferably waxy ones such as jersey royals)
dill 50g
chives 25g
parsley 25g
mint 25g
watercress 100g
capers 40g
sour cream 300ml

For the dressing
extra virgin olive oil 5 tbsp
lemon zest and juice of 1 large
English or dijon mustard 2 tbsp
garlic 2 cloves, finely minced
shallots 2, peeled and cut in thin half moons
sea salt flakes 1 tbsp
crushed black pepper 1½ tbsp

Wash the potatoes well. Boil or steam them whole with their skins on until they are just tender, about 20-22 minutes. Drain and keep aside.

Wash the herbs well and the dry them in a clean tea towel. Wash the watercress and remove any thick woody stems, keeping the leaves and shoots aside.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the salad dressing.

In a medium-sized bowl, add the olive oil, lemon juice and zest, mustard, minced garlic, shallots, salt and black pepper. Give it all a good stir.

Chop half the capers and leave the other half whole. Add to the dressing. Chop all the herbs (except the watercress) finely and add to the dressing. Give it all a good stir.

Take 4 or 5 tablespoons of the dressing and keep it aside in a small bowl. Add the soured cream to rest of the dressing and give it a good stir.

Cut the potatoes lengthways in half and add to the dressing with the soured cream, and gently toss it altogether.

On a large salad platter, spread out the watercress. Pile on the dressed potatoes in the centre. Spoon over the reserved dressing.

Drizzle some more extra virgin olive oil to finish and put a few wedges of lemon on the side, if you like.

Tarunima Sinha is a cook and writer. Her latest book is My Little Cake Tin (Quadrille, £22)