Ivano-frankovskiy Russain salad is somewhat similar to Oliver salad but uses slightly different ingredients.
Ivano-Frankivskiy salad is rich in vitamins and minerals such as: vitamin A – 59.5%, beta-carotene – 55.9%, vitamin E – 15.7%, vitamin PP – 11.7%, calcium – 18%, phosphorus – 27.5%, cobalt – 15.9
Vinegret is a very popular salad in Russia and former USSR countries. In some families it is a popular dish on a celebration tables, but it can brighten up your weekly diet too. The main ingredients are boiled beetroots, carrots and potatoes, with pickled cucumbers and sauerkraut adding to the zingy flavour. To save time, you may boil the veggies in advance, say the evening before.
Variations include adding peas and fresh herbs and substituting onion with green onions. A tip for all the vegetables to preserve their original colours is to first mix beetroot with oil and then add other diced vegetables.
Tip 1. Oil. You should add oil if you are planning to serve the salad straight away. If you are not planning to serve the salad later, bring the diced and mixed vegetables to the fridge (beetroots in a separate bowl) and mix with oil before serving.
Tip 2. Variations. Try adding some mustard to a new flavour/Substitute potatoes with beans/Or bake the veggies instead of boiling them.
The amazing Oliver salad is known worldwide, and in some languages it is simply called the Russian salad. Although the recipe is very simplistic – boiled diced vegetables and meat dressed with mayonnaise – the outcome is so delicious that in Russia it has become pop-culture and a must-have on a New Year table.
The original recipe of Olivier salad was far more sophisticated and was created by a Belgian chef Olivier Lucien who used to work in The Hermitage – one of Moscow’s most celebrated restaurants in 1860s.
In the mainstream cuisine the rare and expensive ingredients were substituted with more readily available ones: grouse with bologna sausage, crayfish tails with boiled eggs, capers with pickled cucumbers and so on. You would think, oh, what sort of a recipe is that, when everything is substituted with something else. But hold your skepticism until you try this salad: the salad is so tasty that it became a pop culture hit in Russia!
Insalata russa – Russian Olivier salad in Italy
We give you 2 recipes – the first one is the classic and modern one, and the second recipe is a pretentious attempt to get as close to the original secret formula as possible.
Ingredients
Method
*Later on in this recipe bologna started to be substituted with boiled meat, and pickled cucumbers with fresh ones beacause people could afford this products in winter. But the basic and cheaper Soviet version still remains just as popular.
Ingredients
Method
Rus: Olivier on any usual day is just so salad, Oliver at New Year’s night is the food of gods! (Think of UK roast dinner for Christmas, when usual Sunday food gets a sacramental flare 🙂 )
This multilayer salad is easy to cook, unlike “herring under a fur coat” does not require much time to soak, and has indeed a very tender taste: sweetness of prunes is balanced by a sharper taste of walnuts and cucumbers refresh the dish.
*If you plan to cook several meals, you can boil chicken and eggs say in advance, say the night before and keep in the fridge. Next day you will need to only chop up the ingredients, which saves time.
*If the prunes are dry you can soften them in hot boiled water for 10 minutes and then dry up on a paper towel.
Herring under a fur coat (or “dressed herring”, Rus. «cелёдка под шубой») is a favourite traditional salad for New Year and Christmas celebrations in Russia, and often decorates the table on special occasions both in Russia and in many post-Soviet countries. This bright multi layer dish should be made the night before the supposed consumption, and put into the fridge overnight (or for at least 8 hours). This way all the layers will get soaked mixing the flavours, and basic ingredients will become absolutely unrecognizable in the final version. Potatoes will smooth the saltiness of the herring, the apple will add a refreshing taste and the onions – a kick to it.
This is one of the dishes which you love or hate, so the question is – do you dare to try it out? I can guarantee you though that every single Russian person loves this salad to bits. Some of my foreign friends where puzzled when they tried this salad for the first time. When they tried it for the second time they seemed to enjoy it more and be more open-minded.
Note: Shape of the bowl: the bottom should be flat. You can see in some supermarket boiled and grated beetroots and finely chopped onions – grab those, they will save you great deal of time.
