A salad we love that’s flexible and not too fancy
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Let’s take a look at a salad that has, remarkably enough, remained popular for 150 years. Salat Oliv’ye (Salad Olivier) was such a fixture on russian celebration menus in the early 20th century that I was half expecting someone to order it at the Metropol hotel in the TV series “A gentleman in Moscow,” especially at the New Year, when it’s a favorite.
It’s typically a cold-weather dish, says Natick cooking teacher helen rennie, who nonetheless makes it year-round. And while she’s at it, she turns the classic on its head.
Traditionally, Salad Olivier is potato salad mixed with meat or fish and vegetables, all chopped into small pieces and dressed with mayonnaise. Everyone raised in Ukraine, Belarus, and other Slavic countries knows it well. The dish also goes by the name russian Salad outside of its country of origin. When you see it in cafes and family restaurants in Western Europe and latin America, where it’s very popular, it might be called Salade russe or Ensalada rusa.
“It was a very elegant dish when invented in the 1860s by lucien Olivier (either French or Belgian — both versions circulate) at his Moscow restaurant hermitage,” Darra goldstein tells me in an email. goldstein, an emerita professor of russian at Williams College, began her interest in the culture on a fellowship to Moscow in 1978. The original salad, she says, “contained expensive ingredients like crayfish tails and hazel hen, and ‘sauce Provençal,’ which was basically homemade mayonnaise.”
The book that russian women turned to in the mid-19th century, “A gift to Young housewives,” by Elena Molokhovets, offered proportions and skimpy instructions for the salad with a long list of ingredients. The volume was written in 1861 and revised many times over decades.
like many dishes with origins in fancy kitchens, Salad Olivier eventually cast aside its fancy ingredient list. A more practical recipe came into fashion: ham or chicken or boiled beef, carrots, pickles, hard-cooked eggs, peas. Soviet children got used to a salad mixed with canned peas in the middle of the winter.
Even today, says rennie, who lived in the former Soviet Union until she was a teenager, some families must include those peas from a can. It’s a matter of nostalgia. “This is how they want it to taste,” says rennie, who opts for frozen peas.
rennie has had versions of Olivier made with baloney, which she finds appalling, but “food was scarce in Soviet times” and baloney was available. her version includes salmon glazed with apricot preserves, balsamic vinegar, and soy sauce. She also likes some form of pickles.
What makes Salad Olivier work wherever it’s made is that there is no real recipe. Use what you have, says rennie: “Every single family will tell you, ‘This is authentic’ and ‘This is not authentic.’” She dismisses all of that because she firmly believes the ingredient list should be flexible.
But the mayo matters!
One area where she’s not forgiving is what hellmann’s, her favorite mayonnaise brand, has done to change the consistency of its squeeze bottle. She will only buy mayonnaise in a jar rather than the dispenser bottle, which, she says, has a completely different texture than the jar. Begin with commercial mayonnaise, she advises, and doctor it. “I add lemon juice and some pickle liquid to thin it out,” she says. Acidity gives the mayonnaise a sharper taste. For tang, she mixes in sour cream.
In 1982, when goldstein wrote “A la russe: A Cookbook of russian hospitality,” her russian Salad was a mixture of chicken, potatoes, orange, and tart apples, and a rich, delicious dressing that mixed mayonnaise, sour cream, vinegar, oil, and eggs pushed through a sieve.
her modern version is made with salted salmon, which is raw and frozen for two or three days to cure, then sliced thinly against the grain. The salmon is layered with potatoes, cucumbers, dill, and a honey mustard dressing, and garnished with bright salmon roe.
rennie, the Natick cooking teacher, has friends who only make the salad for New Year’s. But she likes to make it all year, especially in summer. “It’s such a good salad for a Sunday hike.”
IS ThERE A SALAD YOU EAT ALL SUMMER LONG? DROp US A LINE TO ShARE YOUR fAVORITES.
SALAd OLIvIER
FROM “A LA RUSSE” bY DARRA GOLDSTEIN. SERVINGS: 8
SALAD
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast (8 ounces) Salt and pepper, to taste
3 eggs
2 slender carrots, sliced into ¼-inch rounds ¾ cup fresh or frozen peas
4 medium yellow potatoes, unpeeled and halved (in a bowl of cold water)
1 orange
2 tart red or green apples, skin intact, cored and thinly sliced
2 scallions, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
½ cup mayonnaise
½ cup sour cream
1. In a saucepan, combine the chicken breast and a generous pinch of salt with water to barely cover it. Bring to a boil, skim the surface thoroughly, and lower the heat. Cover and cook for 25 minutes. Uncover and let the breast cool in the pan for 25 minutes. remove the breast from the water. Cut it into bite-size pieces.
2. Fit a saucepan with a steamer insert. Add water to come up to the level of the steamer and bring to a boil. Add the eggs to the pan, cover, and cook for 12 minutes. Transfer the eggs to cold water. Crack the shells with the back of a spoon and remove a strip of shell. let the eggs cool in the cold water (add more cold water if necessary). Peel the eggs and pat them dry with paper towels. Set the eggs aside.
3. return the water in the steamer to a boil. Add the carrots, cover the pan, and cook for 5 minutes, or until they are just tender. Drop in the peas. Cook frozen peas for 2 minutes, fresh peas for 3 minutes, or until tender. Drain into a strainer and rinse with cold water.
4. Add more water so the water comes up to the level of the steamer. Bring to a boil. With a slotted spoon, transfer the potatoes from the cold water to the steamer. Cover and steam for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Transfer to a plate to cool. remove the potato skins and cut the potatoes into ½-inch chunks.
5. With a serrated knife, remove the rind and pith from the orange. Cut the orange into 1-inch pieces.
6. In a large bowl, combine the chicken, carrots, peas, potatoes, orange, apple, and scallions.
7. Set a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl. Save 1 of the eggs for garnish. halve the remaining 2 eggs and work them through the strainer.
8. Stir the sieved eggs and the oil to form a smooth, creamy paste. Stir in the vinegar, mayonnaise, sour cream, and a generous pinch each of salt and pepper.
9. Pour the dressing over the chicken and vegetables. Stir gently with a rubber spatula until blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
10. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
DRESSING
¼ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup sour cream
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar, or more to taste
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or dill
1. On a large platter, arrange the salad, mounding it in the center.
2. In a bowl, whisk the mayonnaise and sour cream to blend them. Whisk in the olive oil, vinegar, and 1 teaspoon of the parsley or dill. Add more vinegar, 1 teaspoon at a time, until the dressing is a thick, pouring consistency.
3. Pour the dressing over the salad. Quarter the remaining egg and add it to the sides of the dish. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley or dill.
— ShERYL JULIAN. ADApTED fROM “A LA RUSSE: A COOkbOOk Of RUSSIAN HOSpITALITY.”
SALAD TIPS
MAkE ALL THE cOmpONENTS AHEAd. Each one will keep for a day. Mix the salad several hours before serving and refrigerate for the flavors to mellow.
INSTEAd OF cHIckEN, use 8-12 ounces of salmon or swordfish, roasted or grilled.
Add ½ cUp cHOppEd dILL pIckLES to the salad, or 1 cup chopped cornichon pickles. USE GOLdEN FINGERLING pOTATOES instead of large ones (cook them whole about 15 minutes).
MIx IN cHOppEd REd ONION (about ¼ of an onion) instead of scallions.