In Eastern Europe, this salad is popular as an everyday meal, and is a favorite in very large batches for holidays and special occasions.
Olivier salad was invented in 1860s by a Frenchman Lucien Olivier, co-owner of the famous Moscow Ermitage restaurant. The salad was one of the restaurant's main attractions. Lucien Olivier kept the recipe secret and took it to his grave. The salad's approximate recipe was later restored. https://restoran.us/trivia/facts.htm
Tatyana Nesteruk writes that in its original form, the salad contained caviar. The modern cook may garnish it with salmon roe and sliced hard-cooked eggs. Modern versions of the salad can include a wide variety of ingredients, and I do not know which ingredients match those of Olivier’s original. I didn’t think to take photographs the day I made this. (Really, who needs photographs of peeling potatoes and boiling eggs?) I was “in the zone” of the process; you know, the place where you aren’t stopping for any distraction or interruption — like washing hands and taking photographs. I was pleased that my end product looked reasonably like the Creative Commons photos I found of the real thing.
This recipe evolved with the making. First, I checked the pantry, the fridge, and went with ingredients we had on hand. Oops. Half a bag of Russet potatoes bearing six-inch spring sprouts needed to cook NOW or be lost. I referred to several recipes, guestimated amounts from the metric measurements, and made what seemed reasonable considering how long we wanted to eat leftovers.
Boiled potatoes are always useful to have on hand. Half of the cooked potatoes were set aside for Bratkartoffeln later in the week with the rest of the Kielbasa. That was good, too. Recipe for that one being simply skillet, sausage, potatoes. Done. That’s always good served with sauerkraut, but we didn’t do kraut with it this time.
Sources: Bremzen and Welchman, Please To The Table: The Russian Cookbook, Workman Publishing, 1990; Tatyana Nesteruk, Beyond Borscht: Old-World Recipes from Eastern Europe, Page Publishing, 2020; Mr. babushka’s aunt’s handwritten recipe card Kartoffelsalat, 19??
~~~
Ingredients
- 4 potatoes and several large carrots, peeled and cut in chunks, cooked with the following spices in the pot: 3 bay leaves, 10 black peppercorns and a handful of dried onions. Remove the peppercorns and bay leaves when you drain the cooked veggies.
- 6 eggs, hard cooked, peeled and cut in chunks
- 5 medium dill pickles, cut in chunks
- half a horseshoe of precooked beef Kielbasa, cut in chunks; if you don’t have Kielbasa, you can use ham or bologna
- 1 cup of canned or frozen peas (thawed).
- 1 shallot or a few small green onions, diced, including tops
Dressing
- 2 heaping Tbsp. size dollops of mayonnaise — maybe a third of a cup
- 1 heaping Tbsp. size dollop of sour cream — maybe a quarter of a cup
- 1/2 tsp. salt — the cured meat, pickles, and mayo are all seasoned/salted. Adding salt later is always an option. Removing it is not.
- 1 heaping teaspoon of dried dill (fresh chopped if you have it)
Drain cooked vegetables, remove bay leaves and peppercorns; set vegetables aside to cool. Update: removing the spices from the veg is a royal pain in the rear. Next time I’ll put the spices in a mesh bag or tea ball. The flavor this gives the cooked vegetables is SO good, I might do it for other potato-based dishes as well. Mashed potatoes seasoned like this would be heavenly.
Make dressing in a small bowl, mix well.
Stir potatoes, carrots, pickles and meat together. Add dressing and mix gently. (I didn’t have carrots and we didn’t miss them.)
Add sliced eggs, peas and onions, stir just until mixed. Cover, refrigerate overnight and serve. It tastes better the day after you make it.
~~~
The Russian version of Olivier salad sometimes shows the vegetables and meat diced into tiny pea-sized bits. Supposedly a Russian housewife’s skills were measured by how small she could dice vegetables and meats. I didn’t do it that way. American and German potato salad is prepared with ingredients in bigger pieces, so that’s how I made it. Dicing food small was a technique used to stretch limited resources to feed many mouths. I am grateful that is not an issue in our lives now.
But how did it taste? This was so much better than anything I’ve made before, I will probably not make ‘American picnic’ style potato salad ever again. It was our favorite potato salad of many decades of potato salads, (Old or New World) and that’s saying something. This recipe is a keeper!
~~~
Did you know? … Steak Tartare comes from the Russian Tartars … and evolved into hamburger.
Tatar-Mongols shredded low-quality beef to make it more digestible. Horsemen carried meat patties under their saddles. This popular in Russia 'Tartar steak' was introduced to Germany before the 14th century, and became a popular meal for poorer classes in Hamburg, acquiring the name Hamburg steak. They began to cook it and add spices. In the US the Hamburger steak became a hamburger, or just burger. restoran.us/...
I got stuck trying to think of how a horseman would design a pouch to fit under the saddle in a shape that wouldn’t give a horse saddle sores. Today, old-timers call this “tiger meat” and it is served with raw onion and rye bread. The Departments of Health and Agriculture have both issued warnings against eating it because of the danger of bacterial contamination, and I’m not including links for that reason. My dad loved the stuff, and I was totally horrified by it. He never convinced me to try it and I’m not sorry, even if “eating makes you strong like tiger.” I’m firmly on the side of the Department of Agriculture on this one. I’ll put a blanket under my saddle instead of my dinner, and take my burgers thoroughly cooked, thanks!
What’s for dinner on your table tonight?