Japan's Universal Love of "Potésala" (Potato Salad)

Potatoes are used as a cooking ingredient all over the world. What kind of potato dishes are there in your country?

Potatoes go well with so many flavors, including Japanese staples like soy sauce and miso. It's no wonder they're used in a wide range of home cooking in Japan. There are lots of tasty dishes that are firm favorites with kids — like "nikujaga," where potatoes, meat and onions are stewed with soy sauce and sugar for a sweet-and-salty taste, or "korokke" (Japanese croquettes), made from mashed potato mixed with ground meat and fried in breadcrumbs. Not to mention "jagabata," a dish of steamed potatoes topped with butter, and miso soup with potatoes... The list goes on.
Another popular choice is potato salad, made of mashed potatoes mixed with mayonnaise and vegetables like carrot and cucumber — or whatever else you feel like adding! Potato salad is a typical side dish that you'll find everywhere from delicatessens and bento boxes to school meals. Sometimes it's even used as a sandwich filling. To the Japanese people, potato salad (affectionately called "potésala") is a familiar food loved by all generations.

From a Russian Restaurant to the Kitchens of Japan

These days potato salad is a typical Japanese dish, but it is actually said to originate from Russia. In the 19th century, a chef named Lucien Olivier came up with the "Olivier salad" while working at a restaurant in Moscow. His salad was made of ingredients like diced chicken breast, potato and pickled cucumber flavored with mayonnaise and herbs like dill, and it remains an essential dish at celebrations today. Its popularity also spread throughout western countries, and it was adapted to suit local taste buds in a number of different places.

Olivier salad: a Russian dish that mixes a variety of ingredients with different textures, like diced vegetables and meat

Boiled potatoes are mashed while they're piping hot. In Japan, this is usually done with a wooden stick called a "surikogi".

Japanese people started eating potato salad when mayonnaise became popular in the first half of the 20th century. At some point or other, it became standard practice to mash the potatoes and replace the less familiar pickles with thinly sliced cucumber. That said, not everyone mashes their potatoes to the same degree. Some people like their potatoes chunky, while other prefer to mash them into a smooth paste. There are also lots of ways to adapt the ingredients — you can add animal products like ham or boiled eggs for a richer flavor, mix in chopped Japanese pickles for extra crunch and a salty kick, or stir in grainy mustard for a more tangy taste. It all depends on the preference of the household or store.

Mash the potato thoroughly until smooth and creamy, or just mash it a little to keep the fluffy chunks of potato.

Mayonnaise Enters the Japanese Food Scene

Mayonnaise has been adapted and refined by various manufacturers to complement Japanese food and rice, and it now plays a vital role on the Japanese dining table. Aside from potato salad, it's often added to roughly mashed boiled egg as the filling for an egg sandwich, where the flavor of the mayonnaise comes to the fore. It also goes really well with sauce toppings for okonomiyaki and takoyaki — fried dishes made from a flour-based batter mixed with ingredients like cabbage and octopus. Mayonnaise is also widely used to bring out the flavors of traditional Japanese foods like vegetable "goma-ae" (vegetables flavored with ground sesame seeds, sugar and soy sauce), or mixed with tuna in onigiri.
Are you surprised to find out that mayonnaise is used in Japanese food? Adopting delicious food from other countries is something Japanese people are good at.

The mild flavor of egg mayonnaise in soft and fluffy sandwich bread is a Japanese favorite.

There's even a word used to refer to people who love mayonnaise so much that they add it to anything and everything — they're called "mayora" (literally meaning "mayonnaisers"). As delicious as mayonnaise is, remember that it has a high oil content and is best enjoyed in moderation.