Olivier Salad .It is a traditional Russian salad dish , which is also very popular in many other European countries, Iran , Pakistan and Israel . . Globally, the dish is commonly known as Russian salad , although this term may connote Vinegret. A cheaper variation is called a Stolichny salad , and also known as a Moscoviense salad.
Summary
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- 1 Story
- 1 Extended version
- 2 Imitation of the original Olivier salad
- 2 Modern Olivier salad
- 3 Ingredients
- 4 Preparation
- 5 Sources
History
Chef Lucien-olivier
The original version of the salad was invented in the 1860s by Belgian Lucien Olivier, chef at the Hermitage , one of Moscow’s most famous restaurants . Olivier’s salad quickly became immensely popular with Hermitage regulars, and became the restaurant’s star dish.
The exact recipe – – was a closely guarded secret, but the salad was known to contain grouse, beef tongue, caviar, lettuce , crayfish tails , capers , and smoked duck .
Olivier’s original dressing was a type of mayonnaise, made with French wine vinegar , mustard , and Provenal olive oil ; his exact recipe , however, remains unknown.
The original ingredients of the recipe were very expensive, the Olivier salad was still an extravagant dish designed to appeal to the decadent Russian upper class. The salad could carry up to 100 different ingredients. Among them were lobster , pheasant , grouse , venison , caviar, or beef tongue . Then capers , boiled eggs , pickles , potatoes , etc. were added. All this cut into very small pieces and seasoned with the great secret of the salad: its sauce. The dressing was a kind of mayonnaise with a multitude of aromatic herbsand probably mustard , which brought all the elements of the salad together and made it delicious.
More extended version
One of the most widespread versions of this recipe is the following:
- Cooked 2 grouse fillets
- 1 tongue of veal cooked
- 100 grams of sturgeon black caviar
- 200 grams of fresh lettuce
- The meat of 25 cooked crayfish .
- 200 grams of pickled gherkins
- Half a bottle of Kabul Soybean
- Chopped fresh cucumbers
- 100 grams of capers
- 5 hard-boiled eggs
- For the dressing: 400 cl of olive oil, beaten with 2 fresh egg yolks , French vinegar and mustard .
Imitation of the original Olivier salad
Chef Olivier made his most precious recipe in a private room so that nobody would steal his secret. Olivier would shut himself up and when he came out he already had the salad ready. But one day, in the middle of preparing one of the salads, he had to leave the room, they say because of the joy of the arrival of relatives and left the door open. This was taken advantage of by one of his kitchen assistants, Ivan Ivanov , who entered this room and was able to see the half-made salad as well as the ingredients for the sauce. The secret was before his eyes. Although he could not know in what proportions those ingredients had to be used, he could get a rough idea.
After seeing what this room hid, Ivanov left his job and went with his recipe to a competing restaurant: the Moskva. There he became the chef who brought a suspiciously similar salad to the world, which I call Stolichny salad (capital salad). This salad is still consumed today and is also called a Muscovite salad. It is an imitation of the original Olivier salad, although with simpler ingredients.
Modern Olivier salad
Olivier salad . Modern version.
Today’s popular version of “Olivier Salad” – containing boiled potatoes, pickles , peas , eggs, carrots, and boiled meat / chicken or Bologna, topped with mayonnaise – is a version of the Stolichny salad , and only faintly resembles the Olivier’s original creation. This version was a staple of any Soviet Christmas dinner, especially a New Year’s dinner , due to the availability of the components in winter.
Despite the fact that the most exotic foods are widely available in Russia now, their popularity has hardly diminished: this salad was and perhaps still the most traditional dish for the New Year celebration home for the Russian people. While some of the ingredients are considered basic and essential, others are either favored or anger discarded as a threat to the alleged authenticity – for example, carrots .
Ingredients
- 5 potatoes
- 3 carrots
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 kilo of cooked meat
- 200gr of peas
- 3 pickles or cucumbers
- Salt
- 250gr mayonnaise
Preparation
Cook the potatoes and carrots with skin (helps to keep the vitamins), then cool and peel. Cook the eggs and meat. Chop the potatoes, carrots, eggs, pickles into 1 cm cubes. Add the peas and salt. Stir the mayonnaise only in the part of the salad that you are going to eat. It is better preserved without it. Mix the salad and refrigerate for a while.
