History
The original version of the salad was invented in the 1860s by Lucien Olivier, the chef of the Hermitage restaurant, one of Moscow's most celebrated restaurants. Olivier's salad quickly became immensely popular with Hermitage regulars, and became the restaurant's signature dish.
The exact recipe — particularly that of the dressing — was a jealously guarded secret, but it is known that the salad contained grouse, veal tongue, caviar, lettuce, crayfish tails, capers, gherkins, cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs and possibly soy beans. Other reported ingredients included truffles, cubed aspic and smoked duck, although it is possible that the recipe was varied seasonally.
The original Olivier dressing was a type of mayonnaise, made with French wine vinegar, mustard, and Provençal olive oil; its exact recipe, however, remains unknown.
At the turn of the 20th century, one of Olivier's sous-chefs, Ivan Ivanov, attempted to steal the recipe. While preparing the dressing one evening, in solitude as was his custom, Olivier was suddenly called away on some emergency. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ivanov sneaked into Olivier's private kitchen and observed his mise en place, which allowed him to make reasonable assumptions about the recipe of Olivier's famed dressing. Ivanov then left Olivier's employ and went to work as a chef for Moskva, a somewhat inferior restaurant, where he began to serve a suspiciously similar salad under the name "The Capital Salad," (Russian: Столичный, "Stolichny"). It was reported by gourmands of the time, however, that the dressing on the Stolichny salad was of a lower quality than Olivier's meaning that it was "missing something."
Later, Ivanov sold the recipe for the salad to various publishing houses, which further contributed to its popularization. Due to the closure of the Hermitage restaurant in 1905 and the Olivier family's departure from Russia, the salad could now be referred to as "Olivier."
One of the first printed recipes for the Olivier salad, by Aleksandrova, appearing in 1894, called for half a hazel grouse, two potatoes, one small cucumber (or a large cornichon), 3-4 lettuce leaves, 3 large crawfish tails, 1/4 cup cubed aspic, 1 teaspoon of capers and 3-5 olives and 1 1/2 tablespoon Provençal dressing (mayonnaise).
As inevitably happens with gourmet recipes which become popularized, those of the salad's ingredients that were rare, expensive, seasonal, or difficult to prepare were gradually replaced with cheaper and more readily available foods, until it evolved (or devolved) into the dish we know today.
Ingredients
Earlier, it always included cold meat such as ham or tongue, or fish. The mid-20th century restaurant version involved not just vegetables, but also pickled tongue, sausage, lobster meat, truffles, etc. garnished with capers, anchovy filets, etc. Some versions mold it in aspic.
In modern usage, it is usually boiled diced vegetables bound in mayonnaise, with Doktorskaya-type sausage (a genericized Soviet bologna brand that most resembles a giant uncooked hot dog). The most common alternative version, where it is replaced with boiled or smoked chicken, is called Stolichny salad, after Ivanov's version.
A multitude of other versions, named, unnamed, and even trademarked exist, but only Olivier and Stolichny salad have entered the common vernacular of post-Soviet states.
Modern Olivier
Today's popular version of "Salade Olivier" — containing boiled potatoes, dill pickles, peas, eggs, carrots, and boiled beef/chicken or bologna, dressed with mayonnaise — is a version of Ivanov's Stolichny salad, and only faintly resembles Olivier's original creation. This version was a staple of any Soviet Russian holiday dinner, especially of a New Year dinner (to the extent that its presence is considered on a par with Soviet Champagne or Moroccan Tangerines), due to availability of components in winter. Even though more exotic foods are widely available in Russia now, its popularity has hardly diminished: this salad was and maybe still is the most traditional dish for the home New Year celebration for Russian people[2]. While some of the ingredients are considered to basic and absolutely essential (peas, pickled cucumbers, potatoes, some sort of meat, mayonnaise), other are either favored or angrily dismissed as a threat to the supposed authenticity: carrots, fresh cucumbers, onions, etc.The salad is popular Bulgaria where it is also called "руска салата" (ruska salata) which literally means "Russian salad," and in Greece, where it can be found on almost any restaurant's menu. The Bulgarian version of the salad usually consists of potatoes, carrots, peas, pickles and some sort of salami or ham. The Greek version usually contains no meat. It is also very popular in Iran, where chicken is usually substituted for other meats. Because of a French influence on Spanish cuisine, it is also widely consumed in Spain (where it is called ensaladilla rusa and is popular as a Summer meal) where it typically consists of carrots, canned tuna, eggs, peas, roast red pepper strips, green olives, potato and mayonnaise. This bears some similarity to versions of macédoine de légumes froid.
The salad is popular in Turkey as "Rus Salatası". It is called also as "Amerikan Salatası" (American Salad in Turkish) due to impact of Cold War on Turkey. Turkish version consists of boiled and sliced carrots and potatoes, sliced cucumber pickles, boiled peas and mayonnaise. It decorates with sometimes boiled and sliced eggs, black olives and beet root pickles. It is served as meze and is used dressing for some sandwiches and kumpir ("Potato" in Albanian and centre and eastern dialects in Turkish).
Festive Russian and post-Soviet states' versions are homemade and traditionally up to the cook's whim. They are built around a base of peas, carrots, cucumbers and/or pickles, and potatoes in mayonnaise, modified with all sorts of vegetable ingredients, such as peppers, tomatoes, etc., and usually completed with a single meat, bologna-style sausage, poultry, or seafood ingredient.
Eastern European cafes and delis often provide an entire range of Olivier-style salads, ranging from passable to gourmet. Additionally, cafeterias, convenience stores, and truck stops sell a number of sub-par factory packaged or locally made versions, mostly extremely simple, low quality basic ingredients flooded with an abundance of cheap mayonnaise-like dressing. These junk food versions could be compared to America's microwave burrito, in proliferation and in their utter deviation from both the original and the contemporary authentic product.
Walloon variant
A variant of the Russian Salad is made in the Ardennes region of Belgium, more specifically in Malmedy and other municipalities, and served during the Carnival season. The recipe calls for potatoes, herrings in vinegar, red beets, celeriac, and apples. However, it in fact closely resembles not the Russian Salad, but an entirely different salad in contemporary Russian cuisine, Dressed Herring (Russian: сельдь под шубой). The only perceptible difference with Dressed Herring is that the latter is layered, with herring at the bottom coated with layers of ingredients, culminating in an outer coat of boiled red beets in mayonnaise, which give it its distinct appearance.
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Russian salad, Olivie, Recipes
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