Pickled Potato Salad

Part II of "What to do with your CSA box?"

Beautiful round new potatoes in summer time make me think of potato salad.

But lately, the kind of potato salad I've been craving leans more toward fresh herbs and bright acidic accents than towards the usual heavy mayo treatment.

And so, I decided to try out a version of Mollie Katzen's Dill Pickle Potatoes from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, one of my favorite cookbooks. She pairs potatoes with pickles and lots of pickle juice, which first seems like it'll be overkill or too liquidy, but ends up being just right. And because we still have a couple jars of home-canned pickles(and pickle juice!) from last summer that we were looking to use up before making more pickles from this summer's cucumbers, this salad was perfect for us.

Pickled Potato Salad

adapted from Mollie Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest

  10 small new potatoes

1 cup diced onions
2 large cloves garlic, minced

1 large carrot, peeled and cut in thin rounds

1/2 green pepper, diced

3 large whole dill pickles, chopped

1 cup of dill pickle juice (straight from the jar)

~1 tsp of salt

fresh black pepper

cayenne pepper to taste

1. Scrub the potatoes, unpeeled, and cut into 1" chunks. 
2. Place potatoes into a large pot of water, bring to boil, and then lower the heat and cook until potatoes are soft to the bite (but not too soft!). Drain.
3. Meanwhile, saute onions and garlic in a couple tablespoons of oil until begin to soften.  Add the carrots and peppers, along with a little salt, and cook until tender. 
4. Combine potatoes and sauteed vegetables with remaining ingredients in a large bowl. 
5. Ideally, let potato salad cool and marinate for at least an hour before serving, so that the pickle juice mixes with the potato starches and thickens up.