Pickled Beet Salad

Ooh boy is this one yummy. The proportions are sort of slushy on this one.
Sometimes I make this salad smallish and sometimes (potluck!) I make it bigger. If
the onions are nice and sweet like fresh Vidalias or Walla Wallas I use quite a
bit more than if sweet onions are out of season. If you have to use yellow onion 
use much less (maybe 1/2 an onion) because that onion is a whole lot sharper. Here 
goes:

Ingredients:

Salad:

  3-5 medium-large red beets
  3-6 eggs (I have found that older eggs peel easier than fresh ones)
  1-2 sweet onions

Pickle:
  ½ cup rice wine vinegar
  ½ cup water
  1 tsp black peppercorns
  1 tsp white peppercorns
  1 tsp celery seed
  1 tsp fennel seed
  1 tsp Hungarian paprika
  ¼ tsp sea salt
  2-3 bay leaves, crunched up coarsely
  ¼ tsp whole cloves

Dressing:
  1-2 cups sour cream
  ¼-½ tsp celery seed
  ¼-½ tsp sea salt

Hard boil the eggs ahead of time. I take a bulletin board pushpin and poke a 
little hole in the large end of each egg, and bring a small saucepan of water to a 
boil and then put the eggs in for 15 minutes, then drain them, let them cool, and 
peel them under running water.

Peel and chop the beets into bite-sized pieces. Put them in a pot of boiling water
and set the timer for 25 minutes. While the beets are cooking, make the pickling
solution in a big tupperware with a tight-fitting cover (large enough to hold the 
beets).

To make the pickle, put the vinegar and water in the container you'll marinate the 
beets in. Take an old-fashioned tea ball, and put in the pickling spices. (If you
can't find the teaball, you can also tie the spices in some cheesecloth. If you
don't have a teaball or cheesecloth you're on your own!) Put the spice mixture in 
the teaball into the vinegar/water mix and let it steep.

When the beets are cooked, drain them in a colander and rinse them and then put
them in the pickling solution right in with the teaball and mix everything around
marinate them for an hour or so, tossing occasionally to distribute the solution.

Peel and chop the onion. I trim off the root end and the stalk end, then cut the 
onion in half and peel each half, then chop each half into 4 equal pieces and then 
slice thinly. Put the onion pieces into the salad bowl. Peel and slice the hard-
boiled eggs and add them to the onions.

Remove the teaball from the beet mixture and strain the liquid off, reserving the 
liquid. Put the drained, cooked, marinated beets in the salad bowl. 

Take 1/2 cup of the pickling liquid and put it in a medium sized bowl, then add 
the other dressing ingredients and mix.

Dress the salad, toss well, and chill for 1-2 hours before serving.