The renowned Russian salad is a yummy mayonnaise-based salad that became recognized throughout the world from the lands of the erstwhile Soviet Union. If you order this salad in any food joint at present, you will be served with a combination of diced vegetables, peas, boiled eggs and meat and sometimes even apples mixed with mayonnaise. At any vegetarian food joint, you can get this salad without the meats and prepared in eggless mayonnaise.
However, if you think you are enjoying the original Russian salad recipe, then you are mistaken. The present-day Russian salad prepared in most places throughout the world is very unlike the original version. The Russian salad also known as salade russe or salade Olivier was the original creation of Chef Lucien Olivier of the Hermitage, one of Moscow’s most famous restaurants. Since its creation in 1860, the salad’s popularity has been increasing with each passing day. However, you will be shocked to know the ingredients that Chef Olivier used to create this phenomenal salad.
Chef Olivier’s salad consisted of food elements as diverse and exotic as veal tongue, grouse, smoked duck, caviar, crayfish tails, hardboiled eggs, cubed aspic, cucumbers, capers, gherkins, lettuce, soy beans and truffles. If you notice there is no usage of boiled potatoes, a main ingredient of present-day Russian salad. The dressing for this salad consisted of mayonnaise made with French wine vinegar, Provencal olive oil and mustard. The precise recipe of this dressing is still unknown. The salad had actually assumed the status as the signature dish of the Hermitage but its recipe known to none but Olivier himself.
However, the secret could not remain completely guarded. Ivan Ivanov, one of Olivier’s sous-chef somehow gained information about some of the ingredients of the original dressing from Olivier’s private kitchen where Olivier worked in solitude. Nevertheless, he was not completely aware of the exact proportions of these ingredients. Ivanov later used his partial knowledge about the dressing to create a salad called “Stolychnyj” that was faintly analogous to Olivier’s salad. Ivanov sold this salad at an eatery where he came to work as a chef after quitting the Hermitage. Ivanov even had the recipe of his version of the salad sold to publication houses.
With time, the diverse and exotic ingredients came to be substituted with those that were readily obtainable in the markets and finally the modern-day version of the Russian salad was arrived at. After getting to know this, I must say the history of food is indeed exciting to read. I am amazed how recipes change to keep pace with times but they remain popular as ever.
