Technically Olivier salad so simple that there is almost nothing to say. Boil all products requiring boiling separately and until tender, cool to room temperature. Then cut everything, everything, everything into small neat cubes, mix, season, mix again, cool and serve.
But in Olivier salad there is something else: the possibility of experience, texture and volume. We are going through Olivier salad with fierce concreteness, without unnecessary intermediaries such as intelligence, skill or habit. When you try the right one Olivier salad, you turn into a child, and not at all because you have been eating it since childhood; I saw the eyes of foreigners eating this salad for the first time - believe me, the same thing.
What about the texture Olivier salad, it is formed from a combination of ingredients that are crunchy and melt on the tongue, and the combination is pulsating and renewing with each new spoon. Perhaps the same cannot be said about the flavor composition of this salad, frankly primitive and flat, but the texture justifies even it.
When I say "volume" I don't mean the crystal bowls used in Russia for serving Olivier salad to the table. I'm talking about the feeling of roundness when swallowing Olivier salad that inevitably arises in the mind of every person who can feel. It is pleasant and creates dependence - on good Olivier salad no one ever refuses.
Orchestra rehearsal
But let's leave the theory aside and move on to reality.
Salad Olivier salad includes three main ingredients, four slightly less main ingredients, one classic dressing and three ingredients added to taste. Do not be smart, and everything will turn out fine.
The main ingredients create that same feeling of volume. These are potatoes, eggs and carrots. Their taste is subtle, but familiar. Potatoes and carrots are also sweet - and to the extent that is pleasant even to a person who hates desserts. In terms of volume, they should be in Olivier salad most (that is, if you add them together). Buy these ingredients should be without much fanaticism, but with attention.
Look for potatoes made specifically for salads (and not necessarily French, although French is good); and boil a couple of tubers in advance in order to make sure they are suitable. It’s easier with carrots - any one will do, except for the one recommended by the Uzbeks on purpose for pilaf. Among the eggs available for free sale, only guinea fowl eggs stand out in taste, so you can use any other than them.
Slightly less main ingredients are responsible for the texture. These are salted capers, pickled cucumbers, something protein (boiled chicken fillet, boiled veal, beef tongue or doctor's sausage) and canned green peas.
To the inevitable question “is it possible without capers?” I will answer "may". But what the hell? Capers are sold in any decent supermarket, jars last for six months, and they sharpen the taste a hundred times better than pepper. Before using capers, put them in a glass, fill with water and leave for half an hour, and then squeeze. So you get rid of excess vinegar and excess salt.
Many use in Olivier salad salty instead of pickled cucumbers. God is their judge. In my opinion, pickled cucumber, combined with potatoes and mayonnaise, gives rise to a piercing aftertaste of a factory canteen, a station buffet and all that I would rather forget and never remember. So my opinion, if you care about him - only pickled. Moreover, pickled squash also, to my surprise, works just as well (but not better).
Which protein ingredient to choose, only your imagination can tell you. And your conscience - the child understands that doctor's sausage is cheaper, beef tongue is tastier, and veal is more dietary. In any case, this protein ingredient should have a delicate texture and unsharp taste, as well as the complete absence of any signs of wiryness.
Green peas are a must. There are many brands of it on the market, and large Western companies make the best of them. From myself, I note that the smaller the peas, the tastier they are.
Classic refill for Olivier salad- mayonnaise. You can cook it yourself or take an industrial one, this is unlikely to affect the taste of the salad. Just don't try to run Olivier salad diet mayonnaise, or sour cream, or yogurt. And try not to add too much mayonnaise. Refueling in three steps will help to avoid this. Perhaps the last third of the mayonnaise will not be needed at all, or only partly.
To taste in Olivier salad fresh cucumbers, fresh sour apple and dill are added. Fresh cucumbers enhance the texture, apple adds something unusual to the taste, and dill, oddly enough, adds freshness. Although without them it will turn out textured, unusual and fresh.
New Year's feast is unthinkable without the main salad of our kitchen. Olivier is prepared in almost all families, in large quantities at once, in order to extend the pleasure for several days.
Five mistakes when cooking olivier
It is very easy to prepare a tender and tasty olivier, if, of course, no annoying mistakes are made.
Mistake 1 - season with one mayonnaise
Of course, it is convenient and simple - to take and squeeze mayonnaise out of the bag. But then the dressing will turn out to be too heavy and satisfying. Do not be lazy, add to mayonnaise, for example, low-fat sour cream. Or heavy cream, as they did before the revolution.
We put Greek thick yogurt, it has the consistency of sour cream and the nutritional properties of kefir. The filling is thick, tasty and healthy. The probiotics found in yogurt help with digestion.
If you don't have Greek yogurt in your store, line a colander with cheesecloth or paper towels, spread plain natural yogurt without additives, and let it drain for several hours.
In a bowl, combine mayonnaise and yogurt in a ratio of one to one, if you want, add a drop of lemon juice, and season the salad.
If you are aiming for a restaurant-level olivier, then make your own mayonnaise - it's very simple. Homemade mayonnaise is perfectly stored for several days, it is convenient to make it 3-4 days before the feast (we advise you to plan the preparation in order to sit down at the table in a good mood).
Be sure to dress the salad just before serving, because after a few hours, unnecessary moisture appears in the dressed Olivier. Put the mixed ingredients in a container, put the dressing in another container, and the next day, just dress the salad.
Mistake 2 - add sausage to Olivier
It's like showing up at the Bolshoi Theater in a tracksuit. Sausage was put in the Moskovsky salad, but it has no place in Olivier. Even if doctor's sausage was always added by your beloved grandmother. Even if you like the taste, this is an imitation and a craft that loses a lot to the original. Make a real Olivier, do not delay until next year.
The choice of the main ingredient is yours. It can be boiled good meat (beef or chicken), crabs, boiled tongue and even baked meat.
According to legend, the French chef Lucien Olivier (Lucien never published the recipe) prepared Olivier from crayfish necks.
In the book "The Uninvented History of Russian Cuisine" by Olga and Pavel Syutkin, it is said that when the cancerous necks were gone, they began to be replaced with caviar. You can add crayfish necks or some caviar.
Mistake 3 - add more potatoes
In cooking, there are many delicious potato salads, but modern Olivier is not one of them.
In the pre-revolutionary book by Alexandrova-Ignatieva, it is recommended to take 5 potatoes for 5 servings, however, in 1914, Olivier was laid out in layers, like a herring under a fur coat, the potatoes were cut in different ways to make two different layers.
In Soviet times, serving in layers was abolished, and potatoes were put in a lot just because the rest of the ingredients were expensive or impossible to buy. Now cucumbers and green peas are on the shelves in any store.
If you put too many potatoes, then the consistency of the salad will turn out to be starchy and viscous. The rest of the ingredients will not be visible. In addition, the potato absorbs the dressing, you have to add a lot of mayonnaise, and then there can be no talk of an elegant taste.
A modern kitchen should be healthy and light, after a feast you should want to dance, and not fall apart on the couch.
The classic Olivier salad with meat is another symbol of the New Year that we are accustomed to seeing on the festive table. But few people know that the author of this dish is the French chef Lucien Olivier, who opened the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow in the middle of the 19th century. His signature appetizer Olivier made from partridge and hazel grouse meat, with the tongue of a young calf, crayfish tails and a layer of broth jelly, gathered gourmets from all over the capital at the restaurant. The meat basket was filled with boiled potatoes, eggs, gherkins, capers, olives and filled with delicious mayonnaise, made according to a unique author's recipe. Many tried to find out the real French recipe for the classic Olivier salad, but Lucien kept his tricks a secret. Over time, Russian chefs adapted the overseas appetizer to our reality, and in Soviet times, a recipe for Olivier with boiled sausage appeared, which instantly took root and became popular. Interestingly, modern Olivier has lost its French roots and is known abroad as "Russian salad".
How to cook a classic Olivier salad
In the past, Olivier salad was associated with prosperity, so the housewives always prepared this appetizer for the New Year's table. A step-by-step recipe for a classic Olivier looks very simple. First, potatoes are boiled in their skins and hard-boiled eggs, and when the products have cooled, they are peeled and cut into cubes. Pickled cucumbers with cut tails are cut into cubes, boiled meat (beef, chicken, turkey) is crushed, liquid is drained from a jar of peas, onions are finely chopped. All ingredients are mixed in a salad bowl and seasoned with mayonnaise. Despite the fact that the classic olivier is prepared with meat, as it was in the original recipe of the French culinary specialist, the doctor's sausage can also be considered a variant of the classics.
The number of products is calculated based on the number of eaters and taste preferences. Some like more meat, some don't lay eggs, and some add twice as many potatoes. The composition of the classic Olivier salad includes 400 g of meat or sausage, 5 medium-sized potatoes, 5 eggs, 4 pickles, a can of green peas, 2 medium onions and 200 ml of mayonnaise. The classic calculation of potatoes and eggs is simple - there should be exactly as many of them as there are guests at the table. You can also put boiled carrots, dill and green onions in the salad.
A new take on the traditional Olivier
Interestingly, the well-known salads "Winter", "Meat" and "Capital" are variations. However, the classic Olivier can be turned into a real delicacy if you replace the meat with shrimp or fish, such as salmon. This is quite acceptable, besides Lucien Olivier also used seafood. Some Olivier recipes contain apples, oranges, pomegranates, pickled or fried mushrooms, avocados, arugula, lettuce, any delicious smoked fish, red caviar, beets and even raw cabbage, which is added to Olivier in some regions of Ukraine. The Italians cook "Russian salad" with green beans, the Germans - with smoked sausage, the Americans - with tuna and canned corn, the Spaniards - with crab sticks and asparagus. In Bulgaria, ham or salami is added to Olivier, in Iran, meat salad is used as a filler for sandwiches, and Greeks, Serbs and Poles generally cook this appetizer without meat.
A few secrets of cooking Olivier
It is difficult to cut the meat beautifully, but to make the salad look more aesthetically pleasing, first cut the meat along the fibers and only then chop it across. Don't overcook the potatoes or you'll end up with mashed potatoes instead of cubes. Of course, it will not spoil the taste of the salad, but the aesthetics will suffer. By the way, potatoes and carrots should be more than other components of the salad. Rustic eggs with bright yolks and halves of quail eggs look very beautiful in Olivier.
Try not to take large pickled cucumbers, otherwise there will be seeds in the salad, and it is better to remove the skin from hard cucumbers so that the olivier turns out to be tender and pleasant in taste. Place sliced cucumbers in a colander or sieve to drain excess moisture. Instead of pickles, you can take pickled or fresh cucumbers, which are often mixed together. Pickled patissons also give a piquant salty taste to the appetizer. In general, experiment!
When using fresh onions, pour boiling water over them after chopping to remove the bitterness, otherwise the salad will have a sharp taste. You can make mayonnaise yourself by adding spices for flavor - it's not only tasty, but also healthy. If you are on a diet, replace sausage with veal or chicken breast, and mayonnaise with low-fat sour cream or yogurt.
For non-standard, cut the ingredients not into cubes, but into strips - it will be very unusual. And most importantly, you should dress the salad with mayonnaise immediately before serving, otherwise it will lose its freshness. You can put a little horseradish and mustard in the dressing. Olivier is decorated with greens, green peas, curly slices of meat and vegetables, beautifully chopped eggs.
Recipe: Not Quite Classic Olivier with Meat
Cut into thin slices 300 g of boiled veal tongue, mix with 3 boiled potatoes and 3 boiled eggs, cut into cubes. Add thin half rings of 2 onions, finely chopped red bell pepper, any greens and mix with the sauce.
We prepare the sauce like this: beat 2 eggs with 2 tsp. salt without a slide, add 2 tbsp. l. milk and beat again. Next, add 2 tbsp. l. vegetable oil and 1 tsp. sugar, mix well and dress the salad.
Olivier is prepared from simple, affordable and inexpensive products. Therefore, you can safely serve Olivier on the New Year's table, and to make the salad seem more festive, diversify it with interesting ingredients. Your family and guests will appreciate this delicious, mouth-watering and beautiful dish, because Olivier never gets bored!
Do you know the secrets and legendary history of the Olivier salad? How difficult it is to restore the exact recipe of the famous dish, which was created in the 1860s in Moscow, at house number 14, on Trubnaya Square along Petrovsky Boulevard, the corner of Neglinnaya, which today is occupied by the Moscow Theater "School of the Modern Play". You will learn the secrets of the legendary Olivier recipe by reading our story about the most famous salad in Russia.
If you turn to some old recipes, then among them you can find many interesting, and even legendary dishes. How do you like the achaic “cumberland sauce”, the name of which can be found in the book by A. T. Averchenko “Shards of the smashed to smithereens” and in the “Culinary Guide” by the king of French cuisine Auguste Escoffier, from where we reliably learn that he was invented by the chefs of Cumberland County, located in northern England, where it was served as a spicy seasoning for dishes prepared from game. Its recipe includes redcurrant jelly, port wine, shallots, orange and lemon peel, fresh orange and lemon juice, mustard, cayenne pepper and ginger powder.
And if you hear such a culinary name as “game cheese”? Intriguing? And such a recipe is common in European cookbooks and refers to cold appetizers made from fried game meat (partridge, black grouse, hazel grouse, pheasant), from which minced meat is first made, wine, strong meat broth, butter, grated cheese are added to it, grated nutmeg, ground black pepper and salt - everything is mixed until smooth and served in portions in dough baskets or other molds.
Secrets of the legendary Olivier salad
According to lovers of secrets and mysteries, the famous author of the legendary salad, culinary specialist Lucien Olivier, whose grave is located in the former German, and now the Vvedensky Moscow cemetery, took away the original recipe of his culinary masterpiece.
Even during his lifetime, the famous Moscow culinary specialist Lucien Olivier, the owner of the Hermitage restaurant, called his signature salad “Game mayonnaise”. It was with the light hand of Moscow gourmets that the salad that became popular was given the name of its creator, which stuck with it along with the wide distribution of this very spicy dish in Russian cuisine, which has become one of the main attributes not only in Russia, but also for compatriots far beyond its borders.
History of Olivier salad - Moscow, 19th century
In the book "Practical Foundations of Culinary Art", published in 1889 and withstood 12 editions, the last of which was in 1927 in the printing house of the Financial Department of the Leningrad Gubispolkom, you can find the exact legendary recipe for Olivier salad and its history. The author of this book, Pelageya Pavlovna Alexandrova-Ignatievna (1872-1953), a teacher of culinary skills at the Imperial Women's Patriotic Society, created not just a thorough textbook on the art of cooking, but a real monument of the era, conveying to the modern and future reader an authentic recipe and professional techniques for preparing all kinds of dishes Russian cuisine.
The next time Soviet culinary specialists raised the “Olivier salad” to a wave of new popularity when in the 30s of the last century it appeared on the menu of the Moscow restaurant under the name “Capital”, the chefs of which, it seems, still remembered the true taste of this famous salad, what connoisseurs of haute cuisine of that time agreed on, stating an almost complete resemblance to its classical predecessor.
The “Book of Tasty and Healthy Food”, published in 1939, which became the first example of a large cookbook in the USSR, contains a recipe called “Game salad”, which is the legendary “Olivier salad”.
Over time, the multi-component recipe for the legendary Olivier salad "lost the ingredients", narrowing down to 3 main components: boiled eggs, potatoes and cucumbers. As the popularity of the Olivier salad grew, a lot of people formed, but the main 6 components somehow settled down: potatoes; hard-boiled chicken eggs, boiled or semi-smoked sausage (boiled chicken as an option); fresh, pickled or pickled cucumbers; green canned peas, mayonnaise.
The author of the rumor about the mysterious disappearance of the authentic recipe for “Olivier salad” was the connoisseur of Moscow city life, writer Vladimir Alekseevich Gilyarovsky, who in the book “Moscow and Muscovites” remarked: “It was considered a special chic when dinners were prepared by the French chef Olivier, who even then became famous for his invention” salad Olivier, without which dinner is not at dinner and the secret of which he did not reveal. No matter how hard the gourmets tried, it didn’t work out: this, but not that. ”
And now, out of place, the word “secret” used by “Uncle Gilai” (as his friends called him) and an enthusiastic opinion about the golden hands of Lucien Olivier became the beginning of a far-fetched mystery of the disappearance of a recipe for a favorite salad. This is confirmed by the prosaic fact that the Hermitage restaurant served this legendary salad for a long time even after his death. In addition, the recipe for "Olivier salad" was also known to the chefs of the St. Petersburg restaurant "Medved" on Konyushennaya Street; and the culinary specialists of the Testov tavern, famous in Moscow, as evidenced by Gilyarovsky himself, describing his lunch in a friendly company: “I have before me the account of the Testov tavern at thirty-six rubles ... We started at the beginning “under the herring”. - For rhyme, as I. F. Gorbunov used to say: vodka-herring. Then, under the Achuev caviar, then under the granular caviar with a tiny pie from burbot livers, at first a glass of white cold myrrh with ice, and then they drank it, tinted with a pikonchik, English under the brains and bison under the Olivier salad ... "
Let's add, for a more or less complete picture in this story, to the above options for Olivier salad, several other interesting versions of it, which may encourage you to create similar dishes.
Olivier salad according to the recipe from the book "Practical foundations of culinary art", 1899
Necessary products and their proportion per person.
- hazel grouse - 1/2 piece;
- potatoes - 2 pieces;
- cucumbers - 1 piece;
- lettuce - 3-4 leaves;
- cancer necks - 3 pieces;
- lanspic - 1/2 cup;
- caporets - 1 teaspoon;
- olives - 3-5 pieces.
- Cut the fillets of fried good hazel grouse into blankets and mix with boiled, not crumbly potato blankets and slices of fresh cucumbers, add caporets and olives and pour over a large amount of Provencal sauce, with the addition of soy-kabul.
- After cooling, transfer to a crystal vase, remove with crayfish tails, lettuce leaves and chopped lanspic.
- Serve very cold.
According to the book Practical Foundations of the Culinary Arts (1899), large gherkins can be substituted for fresh cucumbers. Instead of hazel grouse, you can take veal, partridge and chicken, but the real Olivier appetizer is prepared without fail from hazel grouse.
Interpretation of obscure words in Smirnova's recipe:
- Blankets (from the French blanc - clean, white) - straight pieces of food cut in parallel lines, used as semi-finished products for the manufacture of dishes and culinary products.
- Lanspic - chicken or meat broth, boiled to a state of jelly.
- Soy kabul or kabul sauce is a popular spicy seasoning brought from Afghanistan.
- Caporets are capers, the pickled or salted flower buds of the prickly caper plant.
2. "Game salad" according to the classic recipe from the "Book of Tasty and Healthy Food" (1939)
Ingredients:
- hazel grouse (boiled or fried) - 1 piece;
- boiled potatoes - 300 grams;
- gherkins or pickles - 75 grams;
- green salad - 75 grams;
- boiled chicken eggs - 2 pieces;
- mayonnaise sauce - 0.5 cups;
- soy-kabul - 0.5 tablespoon;
- table vinegar - 1 tablespoon;
- powdered sugar - 0.5 teaspoon;
- salt - to taste.
"Game salad" according to the classic recipe, cook like this:
- Cut the hazel grouse fillet into thin slices, half a hard-boiled egg and gherkins, and dried lettuce leaves into 3-4 parts.
- Put everything in a bowl, salt, pour mayonnaise sauce, add soy-kabul, vinegar or lemon juice.
- Lay the seasoned and mixed salad in a salad bowl.
- Place lettuce leaves in the center of the hill, and around the oval, decorate with boiled eggs, cut into quarters, slices of fresh cucumber and pieces of pickles.
You can decorate the salad with crayfish tails, pieces of crabs, as well as circles of tomatoes. Such a salad can be prepared from various game or poultry, from meat, veal and other things.
3. Salad "Capital" according to a restaurant recipe from the times of the USSR
Ingredients for 1 serving:
- poultry or game (ready) - 60 grams;
- boiled potatoes - 60 grams;
- fresh, pickled or pickled cucumbers - 40 grams;
- green salad - 10 grams;
- cervical cancer - 10 grams;
- boiled egg - 2 pieces;
- sauce "Southern" - 15 grams;
- mayonnaise - 70 grams;
- pickles - 10 grams;
- olives - 10 pieces.
Salad "Capital" according to the restaurant recipe is prepared as follows:
- Boiled or fried game or poultry, boiled peeled potatoes, fresh, pickled or pickled cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs, cut into thin slices (2-2.5 centimeters), and chop lettuce leaves.
- Mix all chopped products, season with mayonnaise sauce, add Southern sauce for taste.
- Put the mixed salad in a salad bowl and decorate with mugs or slices of hard-boiled eggs, slices of pickles, lettuce, thin circles of fresh cucumbers.
On the salad, you can put beautifully sliced game fillets, crayfish necks or pieces of canned crabs and olives
4. Homemade Olivier Salad
Ingredients:
- boiled potatoes - 4 pieces;
- boiled carrots - 2 roots;
- cucumbers - 2 pieces (any);
- boiled chicken egg;
- canned green peas - 1 jar;
- ham (sausage, boiled meat, smoked chicken fillet) - 300 grams;
- mayonnaise - 100 grams;
- salt - to taste.
Olivier salad according to a homemade recipe is prepared as follows:
- Boil vegetables and eggs, cool and peel
- Cut all the ingredients into the same medium-sized cubes and put in one capacious container.
- Add green peas without broth, mayonnaise and mix everything gently. It remains to arrange in mini salad bowls or bowls, decorate on top with a sprig of fresh herbs and be sure to let it brew in a cool place so that all its ingredients are saturated with a bouquet of joint aroma.
As you can see, the Olivier salad in this case is without onions, although you can afford your salad and onions. If you are afraid of its harsh taste, scald the chopped onion with boiling water.
Lucien Olivier (fr. Lucien Olivier) - 1838 - 1883 - a chef of French or Belgian origin, who kept the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow in the early 1860s - the author of the legendary Olivier salad, who took with him the exact secret of its preparation.
Is it possible to cite at least one more salad as an example, which will be a real symbol of home holidays and a family feast? Probably not. Olivier salad has become a real classic, they know how to cook it in almost every home, and everywhere there are little secrets and preferences.
It is believed that it is quite simple to prepare, the ingredients for Olivier are quite affordable and relatively inexpensive, but, as they say, everywhere there are little secrets and tricks to make the dish really tasty.
If you are wondering how to cook Olivier salad so that the result is five plus, then we will definitely share with you all the secrets of this process. True, we will do this a little later, but first we will get acquainted with the history of its occurrence on the horizons of modern culinary.
Interestingly, such a popular and already almost inalienable recipe for the peoples of the post-Soviet space appeared some 50-60 years ago in the form in which we know it today. He owes his invention to the famous French chef Lucien Olivier, who, by the way, awarded him the modern name.
Lucien Olivier in the 60s of the XIX century kept a small restaurant on Trubnaya Square called the Hermitage, the main attraction of which was the eponymous one.
Lucien kept his recipe under the strictest confidence, and masked all the ingredients of the dish with the help of sauce and mayonnaise in such a way that at first glance it was very difficult to determine what was included in it. After the death of the creator, it was believed that the recipe was lost, however, in 1904, a recipe was made public, which was considered a true reproduction of the original.
It included completely different ingredients that we are used to seeing in our dish: hazel grouse meat, and veal tongue, fresh cucumbers and a little pressed caviar, everything was seasoned with a special sauce and decorated with fresh salad.
Isn't it hard to find any similarity? In Soviet times, Olivier salad began to appear on the tables of ordinary residents, however, it acquired a somewhat “communist” character: the dish was created from those products that were easier to find in times of shortage. It was then that peas and boiled potatoes, eggs and potatoes appeared in it, as well as a taste that is so familiar and familiar to us.
Cooking features
Today, a salad familiar from childhood, like any other, has its own characteristics and cooking secrets that help to prepare a truly delicious dish. So what are they?
- All salad ingredients are best cut into small cubes, the size of which will be in harmony with the size of the peas. The same size of all the components of the salad will reveal the taste of each, as well as its interaction with each other, in addition, this type of dish looks more appetizing and attractive. To make the olivier somewhat non-standard, the components can be cut, for example, into long straws.
- The classic salad recipe always uses boiled sausage, but today boiled chicken fillet, veal or any other meat product of your choice has long been used instead. With the help of such additions, the dish acquires new flavor notes: with chicken, Olivier becomes more tender, but with beef, a more weighty meat shade is acquired. What to choose is a master's business, but if you want to cook exactly the traditional version of the dish, then you will definitely need boiled sausage.
- In addition to meat, eggs and potatoes are always added to the salad, and so it is believed that there should be exactly as many of them as guests are planned at the table. Potatoes are cooked in their uniforms in advance, the main thing is not to overcook them, because during cutting they will fall apart and turn into mashed potatoes. Potatoes and eggs, like all other ingredients that can be cooked, must be cooled to room temperature, and only after that mix and refrigerate.
- There are some experimenters who instead of meat put fish products in the salad, for example, crab neck or pieces of red fish fillet. Although with a big stretch, but such versions of the popular dish can also be called "Olivier".
- In order for the salad to stand in the refrigerator for as long as possible, it is better not to season it with mayonnaise immediately, but to do it immediately before serving.
- It is customary to decorate a ready-made salad with greenery, as well as figures from the products that are part of it. For example, peas, beautiful meat or vegetable circles, as well as openwork molds.
- By the way, it is not necessary to use mayonnaise as a dressing, other fermented milk products are also acceptable - kefir or sour cream. It is believed that the best dressing for Olivier is 50 percent fat mixed with homemade sour cream, but low-calorie mayonnaise is not recommended. To somehow diversify the dressing, you can add a little mustard or horseradish to it, or you can make mayonnaise with your own hands, which will also add a few unusual flavor notes to the dish.
Cooking a real Olivier with our own hands
To make the result really tasty, not only the recipe itself is important, but also the quality of the products that are used in it, so approach the process of preparing them responsibly. So what do we need?
- medium-sized potatoes - 5 pcs.;
- pickled cucumbers - 6 pcs.;
- egg - 5 pcs.;
- carrots - 1 pc.;
- onions - 0.5 pcs.;
- chicken fillet - 500 g;
- canned peas - 1 jar;
- mayonnaise - 6-7 tbsp. spoons;
- salt, pepper to taste;
- greenery for decoration.
In advance, it is necessary to boil potatoes in their uniforms, carrots, eggs and chicken fillet, cool to room temperature and only then proceed to cutting. To begin with, we cut the fillet - into small cubes, then cucumbers - if you decide to use fresh ones, then be sure to cut off the skin, so the salad will turn out more tender.
Then add salt and pepper to taste, greens can not only decorate the appearance, but also add to the total mass. It remains only to fill everything with mayonnaise, mix well and let it brew for 1 hour. Before serving, decorate and serve chilled.
