Pickles, Pickled Potato Salad & Vegetable Velouté

Directions

Making the All-Purpose Dill Pickle Brine

1. Combine the water, white vinegar, and apple cider vinegar in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the kosher salt and sugar and stir until both dissolve into the liquid. Add the mustard seeds, red chili flakes, and whole black peppercorns. Heat the brine until it just begins to release the faintest wisps of steam — you're looking for the barest amount of heat, not a boil. As soon as you see that steam, pull it off the heat and set it aside to cool completely. Dill is a surprisingly delicate herb that turns brown and develops off flavors when exposed to too much heat, so it goes in later with the vegetables, never into a hot brine.

   

2. While the brine cools, smash a generous handful of garlic cloves — and set them aside. Save every bit of trim and scrap from your vegetable prep. Those bits have a home in the stock pot.

   

Prepping & Jarring the Pickled Vegetables

1. How you cut your cucumbers depends entirely on how you plan to use them. Rounds are great for sandwiches. Long spears work for snacking. Offset cuts are versatile and give you a head start if you want to julienne later. The thinner the slice, the faster they'll pickle — keep that in mind based on your timeline. For the carrots long offset cuts because carrots have a denser structure than cucumbers and need more surface area exposed to the brine to pickle properly. If your carrot feels wobbly on the cutting board, take a thin slice off one side to create a flat base before you start cutting — no reason to take chances.

   

2. Combine all of your prepped cucumbers, carrots, celery, and onion in a large jar or container. Add the smashed garlic and fresh dill and distribute everything evenly. Pour the fully cooled brine over the vegetables. If the brine doesn't quite reach the top, add a small amount of ice to bring the liquid level up. Refrigerate. At four hours, you'll have a half-sour pickle. At 24 hours — the flavor is bright, well-developed, and perfect for sandwiches and salads. The pickles will keep in brine in the refrigerator for 10 to 14 days. A note on the celery: pickled celery isn't the most exciting thing to snack on, but it adds beautiful flavor to the brine and makes an exceptional Bloody Mary garnish. Don't skip it.

   

Making the Pickled Potatoes

1. Pour the remaining cooled brine into a pourable container so you don't end up with a puddle, then pour it directly over your cooked potatoes in a snug container, covering them as completely as possible. These can be leftover boiled or roasted potatoes — either works beautifully, and this is actually one of the best uses for holiday potato leftovers. Refrigerate for 24 to 48 hours. At 24 hours you get a subtle, bright pickle character; at 48 hours the flavor is more pronounced. Drain the potatoes very well before building the salad — extra brine in the bowl will water down your dressing. Pickled potatoes keep longer in the fridge than plain cooked potatoes, which is one more reason to do this whenever you have leftover spuds.

   

Building the Vegetable Scrap Stock

1. As you trim vegetables throughout this entire project, don't throw anything away. Every celery leaf, every carrot end, every pepper scrap, every corn cob, every tomato vine goes into a large stockpot with cold water to cover. Celery leaves in particular are where an enormous amount of flavor is stored — what feels like a garnish is actually one of the most flavorful parts of the plant. Add bay leaves, mustard seeds, whole black peppercorns, and red pepper flakes. If you have an odd piece of fatty bacon with nowhere to go, throw that in too — it adds depth and the fat is easy to remove later.

   

2. Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for several hours, adding more water as needed. For a more concentrated stock, cook it down further. Let it cook and rest hot overnight, then refrigerate it. After a few hours in the refrigerator, any bacon fat will rise to the surface and solidify, allowing you to lift it off cleanly before straining the stock through a fine mesh sieve. Discard the solids. The finished stock is beautiful on its own, but it becomes something really special when you turn it into velouté.

   

Making the Velouté

1. Velouté is one of the five classic French mother sauces — one part clear stock to one part roux — and it's the most useful thing you can pull out of your freezer when you need to thicken a sauce in a hurry. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter completely. You're not making brown butter here, so don't let it foam. Add the flour all at once and whisk immediately to coat every bit of flour in the melted fat. This is a stay-at-the-pan moment — walk away and you'll have a burnt mess, and no one wants that.

   

2. Continue whisking over medium heat as the roux begins to bubble. You'll see the texture shift from chalky and solid to slightly translucent as the fat works its way into the flour. Keep going until the roux reaches a very pale blonde color — just barely starting to turn, with a faint nutty aroma. That's your target. Add the warm vegetable stock all at once and whisk vigorously. The mixture will thicken almost immediately as the stock activates the roux's thickening properties. When it's smooth, glossy, and pourable, pour it onto a parchment-lined sheet tray and spread it into an even layer. Let it cool, then refrigerate until set or freeze for longer storage. Once solid, it breaks up like chocolate — cut or break it into cubes, transfer to ice cube trays or a freezer bag, and pull a cube or two whenever you need to thicken a sauce, build a gravy, or start a mac and cheese. Holiday prep has never been smarter.

   

Building the Pickled Potato Salad

1. Make the dressing in a separate bowl before it ever touches the potatoes — that way you can control exactly how much you use rather than overdressing and ending up at grandma's ratio. Combine the Duke's mayo, egg yolk–based mayo, and Dijon mayo. Duke's brings the classic American potato salad flavor everyone expects. The egg yolk–based mayo adds richness and body that whole-egg mayo can't match. Dijon pulls everything toward something a little more interesting. Add a squeeze of Yellowbird hot sauce — more than you think — and a splash of caper brine for a briny, acidic note that bridges the pickled potatoes and the creamy dressing. Season with a little salt and sugar, then fold in the roughly chopped dill, the pickled cucumbers and carrots (cut small enough that no single bite is dominated by one ingredient), the pickled celery, and most of the sliced green onion.

   

2. Drain your pickled potatoes very well and fold them into the dressing until everything is just coated. Finish with a generous amount of freshly cracked black pepper. Garnish with the reserved green onion rings. This salad is good right now, but it is noticeably better tomorrow. The brine-kissed potatoes, the dill, and the mayo dressing need overnight to really get friendly with each other. Make it a day ahead whenever you can.