Olivier Salad Recipe - Classic Ukrainian-Style Potato Salad

Name: Olivier Salad Recipe - Classic Ukrainian-Style Potato Salad
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Doctorskaya sausage or pork 350 g; Potatoes 4-5; Carrots 2-3; Pickled cucumbers 2-3; Fresh cucumber 1; Onion 1-2; Green peas (canned) 1 small can; Eggs 3-4; Mayonnaise for dressing; Salt, ground black pepper to taste

Olivier is, without a doubt, the No. 1 salad of the former USSR. Anyone want to argue? It has everything a person could ask for: hearty, tasty, traditional, festive, and it does its main job perfectly, as an appetizer!

The salad owes its name to chef Lucien Olivier, owner of the Hermitage, a Paris-style restaurant that was famous decades ago. The legendary maestro made his salad with hazel grouse, crayfish tails and other exotic things.

Then times changed, and so did people's attitude to hazel grouse (“eat your pineapples, chew your grouse, your last day is coming, bourgeois”), and the grouse dropped out of everyone's “consciousness”. Chicken or sausage, carrots and pickled cucumbers appeared in the salad instead. But Olivier did not become any less popular because of it. If anything, it got a second life.

Almost nothing is left of the original recipe, yet the salad kept its name and its fame. Still, some say it has many faces.

Abroad, in restaurants almost everywhere, you can try a similar dish, usually sold under the name “Olivier salad”.

Here we think pizza is easy: dough and whatever is in the fridge. Europeans seem to think Olivier works the same way: chop up whatever is in the fridge and drown it in a thick layer of mayonnaise. They are partly right. Then again, no! For us this salad is sacred, almost like home.

More with olives

Egg Salad with Olives and GherkinsEasy egg salad with hard-boiled eggs, olives, pickled gherkins and herbs in a light sour cream dressing. Serve chilled as an appetizer or on toast.

Greek saladDelicious and classic Greek Salad. Simple step-by-step recipe of one of the best appetizers to start a good meal.

Spaghetti PuttanescaClassic spaghetti puttanesca: a quick pasta with a piquant sauce of anchovies, tomatoes, olives and capers, ready in the time it takes to boil the pasta.

Quick Kefir PizzaQuick pizza in 30 minutes: a yeast-free kefir dough with baking powder, topped with tomato sauce, blue cheese or mozzarella, olives, capers and Parmesan.

Ingredients

4-6 servings

Doctorskaya sausage or pork 350 g
Potatoes 4-5
Carrots 2-3
Pickled cucumbers 2-3
Fresh cucumber 1
Onion 1-2
Green peas (canned) 1 small can
Eggs 3-4
Mayonnaise for dressing
Salt, ground black pepper to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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The classic Olivier recipe included hazel grouse. Later the grouse was successfully replaced with chicken, and then with boiled “doctorskaya” sausage. I don't know, maybe 30-40 years ago doctorskaya sausage really was made from doctors, but nowadays you need to be careful when buying it.
You can add boiled pork to the salad, although sausage is more usual. If you decide to use pork, boil a piece of pork tenderloin in advance, even the day before, until done, with black and allspice peppercorns and a bay leaf, but no salt. Leave the cooked meat to cool in the broth. That keeps it juicy.
Hard-boil the eggs, cool them right away under running water and peel them without delay.
Boil the potatoes in their skins, or better still, bake them, in the oven or in the microwave. Boil the carrots. Baked carrots are tastier, but they are hard to peel.
The vegetables must cool to room temperature. Once cooled, peel the potatoes and carrots.
Now the hardest part: everything has to be diced.
Small or large, whichever you like. I prefer the eggs cut larger and everything else diced to 10-12 mm. Don't cut too small, or you'll end up with mush instead of a classic Olivier salad.
So, dice the potatoes, carrots, eggs, and the pickled and fresh cucumbers. Some people make it with a fresh cucumber, but without pickled ones it is not quite the right recipe. Chop the onion finely. Drain the liquid from the peas.
Peas are often replaced with canned corn. That's fine too, and not bad at all.
Mix all the chopped ingredients in… not a bowl or a pot! Remember: Olivier is made in a basin! And only in a basin!
Put the salad in the basin, add salt and, I advise, a little ground black pepper.
Then mix well!
Next, dress it with mayonnaise. Choosing a mayonnaise is a tricky question. The name is the same, “Provencal mayonnaise”, but what is inside is completely different. You can make your own mayonnaise, I won't argue. But as a rule everyone has a favorite one, or at least an acceptable one.
Add anything from “just a little” to “so it swims”, whatever you like.
Dress and mix the salad ahead of serving, right before it goes to the table. If the salad is served in portions, put it in a salad bowl and pour the mayonnaise over it without mixing.
Olivier is a perfect thing! Appetizer, meal and tradition, three in one!
And a holiday, especially New Year or a birthday, is no holiday without Olivier! Well, it is a holiday, but it brings no joy!