Make the potato salad: Peel the potatoes, cut into 2-3 pieces each and boil. Cut the ham into strips. Peel the cucumber in a stripe pattern, cut into 2 mm wide julienne, sprinkle with salt and leave for a while. Carefully put the eggs into boiling water, take out after 5 minutes and put into cold water, and peel. Cut the cream cheese into 1.5 cm dice.

Poke a chopstick through a piece of potato and drain off the cooking water if it goes through easily. Return the potatoes to the pan over low heat and shake the potatoes around until they are floury. Put half the cream cheese in a bowl with the hot potatoes, ham, well squeezed out cucumber and quartered boiled eggs. Add 2 pinches of salt and a swirl of mayonnaise, and mix everything together.

Drizzle in 1 tablespoon of vinegar, and mix so as to not crush the potatoes too much. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and vinegar. When the mixture has cooled down, chill in the refrigerator. Refrigerate the rest of the cream cheese too.

While the salad is chilling, make the decorative elements ready. Toast the cashew nuts for a few minutes in a toaster oven. It smells so good! (It burns easily to keep an eye on it.) You can dry roast them in a frying pan too. Crisp up the salad leaves by putting them in a bowl of ice water.

When the potato salad is cold, add the rest of the cream cheese and mix in.