Easter potato salad with pickled pink onions

This Easter I've decided to make one of my all-time favorite side dishes: roasted potatoes bathed in olive oil and tossed with pickled onions and capers. Fatty. Luxurious. Piquant. The perfect accompaniment to a medium-rare steak or roasted leg of lamb.

One thing you absolutely cannot skip in this recipe is the pickled pink onions. There is no condiment more simple and more delicious on God's green Earth, save except chow-chow, and I only have to say that because I'm a Southerner.

I keep pickled onions in my fridge at all times, partly because I like seeing their cheery pink color when I open the fridge door, and partly because they're so useful. I put them in tacos, scrambled eggs, salads of all kinds and sandwiches. Really, you can sneak them into just about anything that is savory.

Another important aspect of the recipe is the type of potato. Use the kind of potato that is good at soaking up juices, the kind that will sit in a vinaigrette and slowly slurp it up into their very being. The kind that will get along well with onions and capers and vinegar, and only get friendlier as they sit together in your fridge.

Even if you know your family isn't going to eat all three pounds of salad, go ahead and make a whole batch. Leftover potato salad is a happy home for things like lentils, roasted vegetables and field greens. Or, roughly chop potato salad and mix it in with 3 beaten eggs. Maybe crumble goat cheese in too, if you've got some. Pour the mix into a warm, greased 8" pan and bake at 375 until it's set for such a stinkin' delicious frittata.

To make salad:
3 pounds waxy potatoes
2 Tablespoons vegetable stock
2 Tablespoons dry white wine
1/2 a red onion, pickled (recipe follows)
1-2 Tablespoons capers
1/2 cup roughly chopped parsley leaves or other soft herbs*
3T vinegar from pickled onions
1/2 teaspoons mustard (any kind except grainy will do)
10 Tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook your potatoes however is easiest for you. While they are still very warm, toss them with stock and wine. While they cool, mix mustard and vinegar together. Stream in olive oil. Toss potatoes and all other ingredients in vinaigrette. Best if made in advance and served at room temperature.

And, if you happen to have a little extra vinaigrette sitting at the bottom of your mixing bowl, how lucky for you! Toss your salad in it or save it to drizzle over steak.

*Such as cilantro, chervil, basil, chives or dill. If you are going to use dill or chives, limit yourself to 2 Tablespoons mixed in with other herbs.

To pickle onion:
3/4 cup white vinegar
pinch of salt
3T cane sugar
5 whole cloves
2 small bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
one large red onion, thinly sliced

Bring all ingredients except onion to a boil, then add onion and cook for one minute. Pour into canning jars and store in the fridge. Fills two 8 ounce jars.

Are y'all interested in hearing about how I cooked the steak? Not much meat passes through my kitchen, but I've recently had a surprising bout of success with flank steak...