Olivier Salad with Pork and Corn

Name: Olivier Salad with Pork and Corn Recipe
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Lean pork 300 g; Potatoes 2-3; Carrots 2; Eggs 3; Fresh cucumber 1; Brined pickled cucumber 2-3; Mild onion 1; Canned corn 0.5 cup (80 g); Provençal mayonnaise 0.5 cup (95 g); Salt, black pepper to taste

☆ 4.7

60 mins

Olivier salad with meat is a variation of the familiar classic Olivier salad. There are many legends, rumors and guesses about Olivier salad. That doesn’t stop it from being the most popular and beloved salad for generations. It’s true: Olivier is appetizer number one in every sense, the most festive salad of all, and a New Year celebration without Olivier is no celebration at all.

Everyone makes Olivier their own way, changing the ingredients, proportions and dressing. I once read a famous chef’s opinion that all Olivier recipes are right! I agree completely. I have never tasted a bad Olivier salad, and have never heard of one.

There is a lot of argument about the dressing for the original Olivier. We prefer mayonnaise. “Provençal” mayonnaise is made from French vinegar, eggs and Provençal (olive) oil, and by and large it is no different from store-bought mayonnaise. But of course the quality of the ingredients matters, and so do the flavor additives, stabilizers, emulsifiers…

The victorious people made short work of the lovers of hazel grouse, but Olivier salad, of which practically only the name remained, didn’t just survive and please. In a completely different form it became the first festive dish for decades. In the Soviet period the recipe was changed often and a lot. Hazel grouse was replaced with chicken, then with boiled “Doctor’s” sausage. Boiled tongue was replaced with boiled pork. Pickles replaced the brined cucumbers, and green peas and onion replaced the capers. Carrot appeared in the salad instead of crayfish tails. Green peas or corn. Fresh mayonnaise is simple to make but, unfortunately, doesn’t keep long. Without stabilizers and emulsifiers mayonnaise separates quite quickly, which makes it hard to prepare Olivier ahead for several days.

There is a lot of argument about how small to cut the ingredients. To be honest, I don’t much like tiny diced cubes in the salad. I prefer to cut each ingredient differently.

Changing and simplifying the recipe let Olivier survive. Although from a meat salad it became more of a vegetable one, since there is now very little meat in it. Modern Olivier recipes are about available ingredients and freedom of choice. That is how Olivier with sausage, Olivier with meat, Olivier with mushrooms and even with seafood appeared.

10 ingredientsTo the recipe

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Pork Patties with Corn (Boribori)

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Mimosa Pizza

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Ingredients

4 servings

Lean pork 300 g
Potatoes 2-3
Carrots 2
Eggs 3
Fresh cucumber 1
Brined pickled cucumber 2-3
Mild onion 1
Canned corn 0.5 cup
(80 g)
Provençal mayonnaise 0.5 cup
(95 g)
Salt, black pepper to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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I love Olivier salad with boiled pork. When I was a child, my family bought sausage for Olivier, real “Doctor’s” sausage, whose taste I remember and can no longer find. Boiled lean pork replaces the sausage very well.
A small piece of lean pork (shoulder or leg) only needs to be boiled.
Add 1-2 bay leaves, 1-2 allspice berries and 5-6 black (mixed) peppercorns to the water. If you like, add a pinch of aromatic herbs. You can skip the salt or add just a little. Boil the pork for the salad for 20-30 minutes. Then cool the piece of meat. By the way, if you cool the pork right in the broth, it will be juicy, but then the meat doesn’t cut into cubes well. So I cool the meat without the liquid, but always covered with a plate. The broth is great for making soup. Or you can simply pepper the broth, salt it and add finely chopped herbs. As a child I really loved a fresh meat pie with a cup of broth (200 ml).
Hard-boil the chicken eggs, about 10 minutes. Cool them right away under cold running water and peel them. Before cutting the boiled eggs, I suggest setting aside a small piece of yolk for decoration. I prefer to cut the eggs for the salad fairly coarsely. Then the eggs are visible in the salad, and they don’t blend into the mayonnaise and simply “disappear”.
Many people boil the potatoes and carrots for the salad. The carrots are indeed worth boiling until done. But the potatoes are better baked. Potatoes boiled in water become watery and sticky. You can bake potatoes in the oven, or better still in a household microwave, after piercing each potato with a knife. Baking time until done is 6-8 minutes at full power.
Peel the cooled carrots and potatoes and cut them into even cubes of 6-8 mm. Put the cut vegetables in a deep bowl. I suggest seasoning the vegetables with a little pepper.
Add the chopped eggs to the vegetables. Drain the liquid from the jar of canned corn and add the corn to the cut vegetables. Many people use canned green peas for Olivier. I don’t like them, because canned green peas aren’t green at all. Most often the color is light olive, and the peas are overcooked and very sweet. Sometimes we simply take frozen peas out of the freezer and boil them for Olivier. But canned corn has caught on in our house, and it is usually what goes into the salad.
Fresh cucumber was part of the original Olivier recipe. The times when fresh cucumbers were available only in season, and out of season were scarce and very expensive, are long gone. True, greenhouse cucumbers are sometimes not small and bumpy at all. For the salad it is enough to cut off half a cucumber. Greenhouse cucumbers are better peeled. Cut fresh and brined pickled cucumbers into smaller cubes than the carrots and potatoes.
Onion got into modern Olivier recipes not so long ago. It is best to use a sweet onion, not the sharpest one. The so-called “Yalta” onion or sweet shallot varieties work great. Recipes often say to dice the onion. I honestly don’t understand how to do that, since an onion is layered and any cubes fall apart at once. So it is better to cut the onion into thin, short strips. Add the onion and the diced cucumbers to the salad.
Cut the cooled boiled pork into cubes, any size you like. Usually the meat is cut to a size between the potatoes and the cucumbers.
Put all the cut ingredients in a deep bowl or, as is traditional, a basin. Salt to taste and gently mix all the components so the dish becomes uniform. Many recipes call for fresh parsley in Olivier. Yes, it’s tasty. But it is better to garnish the salad with a sprig of parsley than to mix the herbs into it.
As already said, Olivier is dressed with Provençal mayonnaise. I am not a big fan of store-bought mayonnaise. In small amounts, homemade mayonnaise is easy to make from egg yolks, vegetable oil and vinegar. Still, lately you can buy quite decent mayonnaise to your taste. Choose the option you like.
Dress the Olivier with mayonnaise right before serving, not ahead of time. That way the salad will taste much better. Don’t add too much mayonnaise. It is enough for all the cut ingredients to be covered with a thin layer of it.
In the old days Olivier was served in beautiful crystal salad bowls, heavy and expensive. For a New Year table that is exactly what you should do. Still, Olivier with meat portioned into small dishes or bowls is just as tasty. Before serving, be sure to sprinkle the salad with a little of the reserved egg yolk, grated or crumbled.
Since childhood I have remembered that Olivier tastes best with very fresh bread. The very freshest. It’s worth the effort to get the most pleasure from the salad.