Outside our country, Olivier is considered a Russian salad. He, along with okroshka, borsch, pancakes, vinaigrette and kvass, has long been ranked among the national cuisine of the Russian people.
Russian salad with a french name
Almost all adult residents of the former Soviet Union know by heart the recipe for a winter classic salad with boiled sausage. He is loved in our country, like nowhere else in the world. It is constantly supplemented, improved, but still everyone knows what is meant by the word "Olivier." The salad recipe "Classic Olivier", or "Winter with sausage", is one of the obligatory that middle school students should master in school at home economics lessons.
Recipe History and Changes
Sometimes you can hear from foreigners that the vinaigrette is the same "Olivier", only its summer version. In it, the sausage is replaced with boiled beets and sometimes herring is added. What is okroshka? The same winter salad with boiled sausage, only seasoned with kvass and dressed with sour cream instead of mayonnaise. There is a simple explanation of why there are so many Russian dishes with French names in our kitchen.
In the 18-19 centuries, the fashion for everything French can be compared with the fashion of the last decades for everything American and Western European. The kitchen, language and in general all household fashion are very sensitive to new trends, which are more or less actively being introduced into everyday life. In the open spaces of our homeland, they began to make traditional European potato salad with boiled veal or game, and in the Soviet period, when meat was interrupted, they were replaced with boiled sausage. Most often "Doctoral".
Once upon a time for a festive feast, now for a quick dinner
Winter salad (recipe with sausage) has long ceased to be an actual holiday dish for the New Year. Luckily, the food shortage has long since left us, so there is no longer any need to look for sausages in shops and take care of them for a special case. Close refrigerators gave way to large multi-compartment units, and a winter salad with sausage, and even better - with meat, marine reptiles, caviar, herring or other fish, can now be made at least every day.
And now we’ll tell you how to cook a winter salad (recipe with sausage). Cook carrots, potatoes and eggs, buy pickles, green peas or canned corn, mayonnaise, sausage without fat, or boil any lean meat. These are the basic ingredients for Olivier. They can be stored in the refrigerator and combined before dinner in a hearty and tasty salad. It depends on you whether you will cook vegetables in water or bake in foil in the oven, the main thing is that they do not boil in water and do not turn into mashed potatoes. In order to avoid such a misfortune, cook them in a peel.
Some difficult questions
How to determine the amount of ingredients? This question usually arises in young and inexperienced cooks. They long and painfully decide how many grams of potatoes to put, whether to count the weight of the peel or not. The answer is simple: for a small number of eaters, the number of potatoes, carrots, peas and meat and onions prepared for mixing in a salad bowl should be approximately the same.
Not everyone likes to add onions to a winter salad (a recipe with sausage) - the salad quickly deteriorates from it, and many do not like the smell. To neutralize these unpleasant features of a very tasty and healthy onion, you need to do the following: cut the onion for the salad as small as possible, boil water and pour the vegetable with boiling water. Throw the onion into a colander immediately. Now it can be fearlessly put in a winter salad.
The Soviet-style sausage recipe did not imply the presence of fresh dill, parsley, celery or arugula in it. Now a small amount of spicy herbs is very welcome.
Green peas are successfully replaced not only with corn, but also with canned olives, asparagus or gherkins cut into pieces.
What should be unchanged in the salad is barrel cucumbers. Do not try to replace them with pickled vinegar. With them, Olivier will lose its classic charm.
Products needed for salad:
- boiled sausage;
- boiled potatoes;
- boiled carrots;
- hard-boiled eggs;
- green pea;
- barrel cucumbers;
- onion;
- avocado;
- mayonnaise.
There is no avocado in the classic recipe, but this fruit is very harmonious for meat salad in taste, color, and consistency. It needs to be peeled, cut from the stone, crushed into cubes and, so as not to darken, sprinkle with lemon juice and add to the salad.
If it seems that with ordinary cooked sausage the salad will be rustic, then make it with sausage made from venison or some exotic meat.
Potatoes and carrots are better to cook or bake without salt. It is present in sufficient quantities in cucumbers and mayonnaise.
All salad ingredients are crushed to about the size of green peas, seasoned with mayonnaise and well mixed with two tablespoons.
The salad will be tastier if, before serving, it will stand for two hours in the refrigerator - it will cool and soak.