In this recipe, as I remember, pressed caviar was also cooked by Olivier close to this recipe. Instead of hazel quail, instead of crayfish necks, crab meat, and, instead of pressed caviar, red, but lying separately from the salad. And yes, I added Worcestershire sauce to homemade mayonnaise. Very very tasty!!!

Here is another version of the recipe "Togo Olivier"
Kabul sauce (“soy kabul”, as it was often called in the 19th century) is made from flour sauteed in butter, broth (or water), grated horseradish, cream and salt. Ingredients: flour 20 g; butter 10 g; broth 50 g; horseradish 20 g; cream 20 g; salt - to taste.

Salad Olivier, the way it should be.

The pre-revolutionary Olivier salad recipe includes hazel grouse and black caviar. It was invented in the second half of the 19th century by the Frenchman Lucien Olivier, who moved to Russia, one of the founders of the legendary Moscow restaurant Hermitage.
Interestingly, it was this salad that largely provided the restaurant with great fame. And the richest merchants and industrialists, as well as famous writers, liked to gather in the Hermitage. For example, in 1879 a gala dinner was held in the Hermitage in honor of I.S. Turgenev, in 1880 - in honor of F.M. Dostoevsky, in 1899 - the famous celebration of the centenary of Pushkin's birthday, which was attended by most of the most prominent cultural figures of that time. And, of course, all these feasts could not do without the original Olivier salad. True, by the end of the 19th century, various variations of its ingredients began to appear, including those that incredibly increased the cost of an already expensive salad. And in Soviet times, on the contrary, the traditional list of ingredients became such that Olivier turned into a truly popular dish. And, nevertheless, it is not a sin to occasionally treat yourself to this salad prepared in the traditions of Tsarist Russia. And we give one of the recipes of those years, not the most complicated, but at the same time quite luxurious, and most importantly - delicious.

For this dish you will need (based on 4 servings)

Fritillaries - 2 pieces.
Veal tongue - 1 piece.
Black caviar - 100 g.
Crayfish - 25 pieces.
Pikuli - 1/2 can.
Fresh cucumbers - 2 pieces.
Quail egg - 10 pieces
Pickled capers - 80 g.
Sauce Provencal - 1/2 can.
Kabul sauce - to taste.

Cooking method

1. Fry grouse and chop the pulp.
2. Boil the tongue and cut into equal pieces.
3. Add meat of boiled crayfish, cubes of pickles, chopped eggs and cucumbers.
4. Gently mix the ingredients, put them in a salad bowl, add Kabul sauce, capers, Provencal sauce.
5. When serving, decorate the salad with caviar.

Important additions

In the original recipe, Provencal sauce is not store-bought mayonnaise, but 400 grams of olive oil whipped with two fresh egg yolks, French vinegar and mustard.
Kabul sauce (“soy kabul”, as it was often called in the 19th century) is made from flour sauteed in butter, broth (or water), grated horseradish, cream and salt. Ingredients: flour 20 g; butter 10 g; broth 50 g; horseradish 20 g; cream 20 g; salt - to taste.
Thus, cooking Olivier according to a pre-revolutionary recipe will require you a little more time and much more money than the familiar and beloved by many Soviet version of this salad. But the result is worth it!

May vary, depending on the "supplier" fish. For example, there is the legendary "golden caviar". This is light black caviar of the rarest fish - albino beluga, which is approximately 90-100 years old. This rare "golden" fish, with a congenital genetic disorder, supplies the most nutritious caviar.

Olivier recipe with black caviar

Ingredients

Cooking method:

We cut boiled potatoes, tongue, chicken breast, pickled and fresh cucumbers into small cubes. Add grated boiled eggs, green peas, crayfish necks (without brine), salt, season with mayonnaise and mix everything thoroughly. Cool the salad in the refrigerator for about 30-40 minutes.

Then put it on a dish, put boiled eggs cut in half and black caviar on top. You can arrange in small portions in tartlets and just sprinkle with black caviar.

Bon appetit!

Helpful information:

Sturgeon caviar - black caviar according to GOST, is divided into three types: sturgeon, beluga, stellate sturgeon. In the Russian Federation, a ban was introduced on the extraction of black caviar, due to a decrease in the number of sturgeon fish. Some species are on the verge of extinction. On the territory of Russia there are several fish farms engaged in sturgeon breeding and, accordingly, the extraction of black caviar from grown individuals. Such caviar is natural, which is only slightly inferior in terms of useful properties to wild sturgeon caviar.

Do you know the secrets and legendary history of the Olivier salad? How difficult it is to restore the exact recipe of the famous dish, which was created in Moscow in the 1860s, at house number 14, on Trubnaya Square along Petrovsky Boulevard, the corner of Neglinnaya, which today is occupied by the Moscow Theater "School of the Modern Play". You will learn the secrets of the legendary Olivier recipe by reading our story about the most famous salad in Russia.

If you turn to some old recipes, then among them you can find many interesting, and even legendary dishes. How do you like the achaic “cumberland sauce”, the name of which can be found in the book by A. T. Averchenko “Shards of the smashed to smithereens” and in the “Culinary Guide” by the king of French cuisine Auguste Escoffier, from where we reliably learn that he was invented by the chefs of Cumberland County, located in northern England, where it was served as a spicy seasoning for dishes prepared from game. Its recipe includes redcurrant jelly, port wine, shallots, orange and lemon peel, fresh orange and lemon juice, mustard, cayenne pepper and ginger powder.

And if you hear such a culinary name as “game cheese”? Intriguing? And such a recipe is common in European cookbooks and refers to cold appetizers made from fried game meat (partridge, black grouse, hazel grouse, pheasant), from which minced meat is first made, wine, strong meat broth, butter, grated cheese, grated nutmeg, ground black pepper and salt - everything is mixed until smooth and served in portions in dough baskets or other molds.

Secrets of the legendary Olivier salad

According to lovers of secrets and mysteries, the famous author of the legendary salad, culinary specialist Lucien Olivier, whose grave is located in the former German, and now the Vvedensky Moscow cemetery, took away the original recipe of his culinary masterpiece.

Even during his lifetime, the famous Moscow culinary specialist Lucien Olivier, the owner of the Hermitage restaurant, called his signature salad “Game mayonnaise”. It was with the light hand of Moscow gourmets that the salad that became popular was given the name of its creator, which stuck with it along with the wide distribution of this very spicy dish in Russian cuisine, which has become one of the main attributes not only in Russia, but also for compatriots far beyond its borders.

History of Olivier salad - Moscow, 19th century

In the book "Practical Foundations of Culinary Art", published in 1889 and withstood 12 editions, the last of which was in 1927 in the printing house of the Financial Department of the Leningrad Gubispolkom, you can find the exact legendary recipe for Olivier salad and its history. The author of this book, Pelageya Pavlovna Alexandrova-Ignatievna (1872-1953), a teacher of culinary skills at the Imperial Women's Patriotic Society, created not just a thorough textbook on the art of cooking, but a real monument of the era, conveying to the modern and future reader an authentic recipe and professional techniques for preparing all kinds of dishes Russian cuisine.

The next time Soviet culinary specialists raised the “Olivier salad” to a wave of new popularity when in the 30s of the last century it appeared on the menu of the Moscow restaurant under the name “Capital”, the chefs of which, it seems, still remembered the true taste of this famous salad, what connoisseurs of haute cuisine of that time agreed on, arguing an almost complete resemblance to its classical predecessor.

The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food, published in 1939, which became the first sample of a large cookbook in the USSR, contains a recipe called "Game salad", which is the legendary "Olivier salad".

Over time, the multi-component recipe for the legendary Olivier salad "lost the ingredients", narrowing down to 3 main components: boiled eggs, potatoes and cucumbers. As the popularity of the Olivier salad grew in popularity, a lot of people formed, but the main 6 components somehow settled down: potatoes; hard-boiled chicken eggs, boiled or semi-smoked sausage (boiled chicken as an option); fresh, pickled or pickled cucumbers; green canned peas, mayonnaise.

The author of the rumor about the mysterious disappearance of the authentic recipe for “Olivier salad” was the connoisseur of Moscow city life, writer Vladimir Alekseevich Gilyarovsky, who in the book “Moscow and Muscovites” remarked: “It was considered a special chic when dinners were prepared by the French chef Olivier, who even then became famous for his invention” salad Olivier, without which dinner is not at dinner and the secret of which he did not reveal. No matter how hard the gourmets tried, it didn’t work out: this, but not that. ”

And now, out of place, the word “secret” used by “Uncle Gilai” (as his friends called him) and an enthusiastic opinion about the golden hands of Lucien Olivier became the beginning of a far-fetched mystery of the disappearance of a recipe for a favorite salad. This is confirmed by the prosaic fact that the Hermitage restaurant served this legendary salad for a long time even after his death. In addition, the recipe for "Olivier salad" was also known to the chefs of the St. Petersburg restaurant "Medved" on Konyushennaya Street; and the culinary specialists of the Testov tavern, famous in Moscow, as evidenced by Gilyarovsky himself, describing his lunch in a friendly company: “I have before me the account of the Testov tavern at thirty-six rubles ... We started at the beginning “under the herring”. - For rhyme, as I. F. Gorbunov used to say: vodka-herring. Then, under Achuev caviar, then under grained caviar with a tiny pie from burbot livers, a glass of cold white myrrh with ice first, and then they drank it, tinted with pikonchik, English under brains and bison under Olivier salad ... "

For a more or less complete picture in this story, let's add to the above options for Olivier salad several other interesting versions of it, which may encourage you to create similar dishes.

Olivier salad according to the recipe from the book "Practical foundations of culinary art", 1899

Necessary products and their proportion per person.

• hazel grouse - 1/2 piece;
• potatoes - 2 pieces;
• cucumbers - 1 piece;
• lettuce - 3-4 leaves;
• cancer necks - 3 pieces;
• lanspic - 1/2 cup;
• caporets - 1 teaspoon;
• olives - 3-5 pieces.

1. Cut the fillets of fried good hazel grouse into blankets and mix with boiled, not crumbly potato blankets and slices of fresh cucumbers, add caporets and olives and pour over a large amount of Provencal sauce, with the addition of soy-kabul.
2. After cooling, transfer to a crystal vase, remove with crayfish tails, lettuce leaves and chopped lanspic.
3. Serve very cold.

According to the book Practical Foundations of the Culinary Arts (1899), large gherkins can be substituted for fresh cucumbers. Instead of hazel grouse, you can take veal, partridge and chicken, but the real Olivier appetizer is prepared without fail from hazel grouse.

Interpretation of obscure words in Smirnova's recipe:

1. Blankets (from the French blanc - clean, white) - straight pieces of food cut in parallel lines, used as semi-finished products for the manufacture of dishes and culinary products.
2. Lanspic - chicken or meat broth, boiled to a state of jelly.
3. Soy kabul or kabul sauce is a popular spicy seasoning brought from Afghanistan.
4. Caporets are capers, the pickled or salted flower buds of the prickly caper plant.

2. "Game salad" according to the classic recipe from the "Book of Tasty and Healthy Food" (1939)

Ingredients:

• hazel grouse (boiled or fried) - 1 piece;
• boiled potatoes - 300 grams;
• gherkins or pickles - 75 grams;
• green salad - 75 grams;
• boiled chicken eggs - 2 pieces;
• mayonnaise sauce - 0.5 cups;
• soy-kabul - 0.5 tablespoon;
• table vinegar - 1 tablespoon;
• powdered sugar - 0.5 teaspoon;
• salt - to taste.

"Game salad" according to the classic recipe, cook like this:

1. Cut the hazel grouse fillet into thin slices, half a hard-boiled egg and gherkins, and dried lettuce leaves into 3-4 parts.
2. Put everything in a bowl, salt, pour mayonnaise sauce, add soy-kabul, vinegar or lemon juice.
3. Lay the seasoned and mixed salad in a salad bowl.
4. Place lettuce leaves in the center of the hill, and around the oval, decorate with boiled eggs, cut into quarters, slices of fresh cucumber and pieces of pickles.

You can decorate the salad with crayfish tails, pieces of crabs, as well as circles of tomatoes. Such a salad can be prepared from various game or poultry, from meat, veal and other things.

3. Salad "Capital" according to a restaurant recipe from the times of the USSR

Ingredients for 1 serving:

• poultry or game (ready) - 60 grams;
• boiled potatoes - 60 grams;
• fresh, pickled or pickled cucumbers - 40 grams;
• green salad - 10 grams;
• cervical cancer - 10 grams;
• boiled egg - 2 pieces;
• sauce "Southern" - 15 grams;
• mayonnaise - 70 grams;
• pickles - 10 grams;
• olives - 10 pieces.

Salad "Capital" according to the restaurant recipe is prepared as follows:

1. Boiled or fried game or poultry, boiled peeled potatoes, fresh, pickled or pickled cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs, cut into thin slices (2-2.5 centimeters), and chop lettuce leaves.
2. Mix all chopped products, season with mayonnaise sauce, add Southern sauce for taste
3. Put the mixed salad in a salad bowl and decorate with mugs or slices of hard-boiled eggs, slices of pickles, lettuce, thin circles of fresh cucumbers.

On the salad, you can put beautifully sliced ​​​​game fillets, crayfish necks or pieces of canned crabs and olives

4. Homemade Olivier Salad

Ingredients:

• boiled potatoes - 4 pieces;
• boiled carrots - 2 roots;
• cucumbers - 2 pieces (any);
• boiled chicken egg;
• canned green peas - 1 jar;
• ham (sausage, boiled meat, smoked chicken fillet) - 300 grams;
• mayonnaise - 100 grams;
• salt - to taste.

Olivier salad according to a homemade recipe is prepared as follows:

1. Boil vegetables and eggs, cool and peel
2. Cut all the ingredients into equal small cubes and put in one capacious container.
3. Add green peas without broth, mayonnaise and mix everything gently. It remains to arrange in mini salad bowls or bowls, decorate on top with a sprig of fresh herbs and be sure to let it brew in a cool place so that all its ingredients are saturated with a bouquet of joint aroma.

As you can see, the Olivier salad in this case is without onions, although you can afford your salad and onions. If you are afraid of its harsh taste, scald the chopped onion with boiling water.

Lucien Olivier (fr. Lucien Olivier) - 1838 - 1883 - a chef of French or Belgian origin, who kept the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow in the early 1860s - the author of the legendary Olivier salad, who took with him the exact secret of its preparation.

Publications in the Traditions section

Cultural code: the legendary Olivier

The building of the Hermitage restaurant. 1900s. Photo: wikimedia.org

Lucien Olivier, head of the Hermitage restaurant. Photo: persons-info.com

The interior of the Hermitage restaurant. 1900s. Photo: oldmos.ru

The Frenchman Lucien Olivier, the chef of the Hermitage restaurant on Trubnaya Square, hardly planned to get into the history of Russian cuisine. But got. The appetizer, invented by him in the 60s of the XIX century for the jaded guests of an expensive restaurant, quickly fell in love with the Moscow public. Then the Russian national cuisine - hearty, plentiful, but rather simple - gradually changed under the pressure of persistent fashion for everything French.

Olivier guessed the moment: his signature appetizer with a special Provence sauce, the grandfather of modern mayonnaise, almost immediately became the Hermitage's signature dish. In the book “Moscow and Muscovites”, the writer Gilyarovsky said: “It was considered a special chic when dinners were prepared by the Frenchman Olivier, who even then became famous for the Olivier salad he invented, without which dinner is not at lunchtime and the secret of which he did not reveal. No matter how hard the gourmets tried, it didn’t work out: this, but not that ”.

Culinary historians usually agree that it was the sauce: the chef Lucien, himself a native of Provence, was well versed in the local oil and used only a certain variety of it. However, this secret was quickly revealed, and within a few years the salad entered the menu of all somewhat reputable catering establishments.

“We started at first under the herring. Then with Achuev caviar, then with grainy caviar with a tiny burbot liver pie, at first a glass of white cold myrrh with ice, and then they drank English with brains and bison with Olivier salad.

Vladimir Gilyarovsky. "Moscow and Muscovites"

In the next decade, the salad becomes so popular that its recipes begin to be placed in cookbooks for wealthy audiences. These are not books for young unskillful housewives and not "the secret secrets of a cheap lunch." Olivier requires skillful hands - and money.

Culinary Guide, 1897

Salad "Olivier"

Necessary products and their proportion for 5 persons.

Fritillaries - 3 pcs., Potatoes - 5 pcs., Cucumbers - 5 pcs., Salad - 2 koshchiks, Provence - for ½ bottle. oil, crayfish necks - 15 pcs., Lanspicu - 1 cup, olives, gherkins - only ¼ pound, truffles - 3 pcs. Cooking rules: Singe, gut, fill and fry naturally banquet shot hazel grouses, cool and remove all the flesh from the bones. Cut the fillets into blankets, and chop the rest of the flesh a little. From the bones of the game, cook a good broth, from which to cook lanspic later. Boil the potatoes in the skin, then peel and take out into a recess the size of a three-kopeck coin, and chop the trimmings. Peel fresh cucumbers and cut into thin circles. Truffles cut into circles. Boil crayfish and take necks from them. Prepare a thick Provence sauce, add kabul-son for spiciness, and a little heavy cream for better taste and color. Peel large olives with a screw. When everything is prepared, then take a glass vase or a deep salad bowl and start laying everything in rows. First, put game and potato trimmings on the bottom, lightly seasoning them with Provence, then put a row of game on top, then some potatoes, cucumbers, some truffles, olives and crayfish necks, pour all this with a part of the sauce to make it juicy, put a row of game on top again and etc. Leave some of the crayfish necks and truffles for decoration on top. When all the products are stacked in a vase in the form of a slide, then cover with Provence on top so that the products are not visible. In the middle of the vase, put some kind of salad in a bouquet, and arrange the crayfish necks, claws from boiled crayfish and truffles around it more beautifully. Chop the frozen lanspic, put it in a cornet, make a thin elegant net on top and chill everything well.

Note: In exactly the same way, you can prepare a salad from the remaining roast: beef, veal, black grouse, chicken, etc., as well as from any non-bony fish. Sometimes in these salads, if desired, you can add fresh tomatoes, cut into circles. But a real Olivier appetizer is always prepared from hazel grouse.
Note: Lanspic is a thick, sticky, clear broth that has the density of a jelly. To get a bottle of ready-made lanspic, you need to take a bottle of ready-made broth and 12 sheets of gelatin, or a calf's head, or two cow's feet, or 5-6 calf's feet.

In other books of this period, you can find recipes without olives, but, for example, with pressed caviar or lobsters. There are many options, one thing in common: in the 19th century, Olivier was a layered salad for the upper layers. But having stepped from restaurants to home tables, Olivier gradually loses his culinary snobbery and becomes more democratic.

Cookbook, 1912

Olivier salad. Proportion: chickens - 1 pc., boiled potatoes - 5 pcs., fresh cucumbers - 5 pcs., truffles - 1 pc., Provence sauce - 4 tables. spoons.

Preparation: boil the kuru in the broth and, taking it out, cool, remove all the flesh, both from the fillet and from the paws, cut obliquely, thinly, into slices. Take large potatoes, round with a column and cut into pennies. Peel fresh cucumbers and chop finely. Put all this in a saucepan, add a little salt, put the Provence sauce and mix, and then put it in a salad bowl, level it with a slide, remove the shredded truffles on top, and the salad is ready, served especially for a snack.
Note: Salad "de-boeuf" (appetizer). The same as Olivier, but the difference is that you need to take boiled meat instead of chicken. Cut the meat into thin leaves, combine with cucumbers, potatoes and Provence sauce. Decorate with truffles.

In 5 years, tsarist Russia will end with truffles. Mayakovsky's agitation declared hazel grouses to be bourgeois food, and those who survived the revolution, and then the Civil War, had no time for culinary delights. In the hungry 1921, the writer Arkady Averchenko recalled past feasts in the work “Shards of the Broken to Pieces”: “A glass of lemon vodka cost fifty dollars, but for the same fifty dollars, friendly bartenders literally forced you an appetizer: fresh caviar, jellied duck, Cumberland sauce, Olivier salad, game cheese”. However, the national cuisine at that time was in obvious decline: rusty rationed herring, saccharin, mixed fat. Olivier can only be remembered.

In the relatively well-fed thirties, the history of lettuce - along with the history of the country - went on a new round. The chef of the Moscow restaurant, Ivan Ivanov, who, according to legend, once worked on the sidelines of Lucien Olivier himself, invents his own remake on an already well-known theme - the Stolichny salad. For the first time, canned food is added to the already known recipe: green peas and crab meat. But for the role of the Soviet salad number one, "Capital" is not yet drawn. NEP rehabilitates hazel grouse, sturgeon and crayfish necks: in the then collections of recipes there is an abundance of subtly similar snacks under playful names like "Silva" or "Parisien". In such a variety, Olivier is not only losing ground, but it no longer claims to be the main festive dish.

Cooking guide for catering. 1945
Vegetable salad with game (Olivier)
Fillets of boiled or fried cold game, boiled potatoes, gherkins or pickled cucumbers are cut into thin slices, green salad leaves, [sauce] soy-kabul, mayonnaise, salt are added to them. All this is carefully mixed, stacked in a salad bowl, decorated with circles or slices of a hard-boiled egg, lettuce, olives, game slices and green cucumber slices. You can put 2-3 cancer necks or pieces of canned crabs on the salad.

It is easy to see that little was left of the French appetizer by this time. Stalin's Olivier is a fantasy thing. In 1948, the Soviet culinary bible, The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food, recommended adding green salad, lemon juice, apples, and even powdered sugar to Olivier. In 1952, in a book that called for abundance and showed the best examples of Soviet food photography, boiled carrots and, unexpectedly, cauliflower appear for the first time as ingredients. They decorate the dish - for lack of fish - no longer with crayfish, but with a boiled egg, in the future, the decoration gradually slips into the salad bowl and becomes an indispensable ingredient. Olivier is still considered a game salad, but around it on the pages of the “Book of Tasty and Healthy Food” there are more and more variations very similar in composition, including “Salad with sausage” (+ potatoes, celery, lettuce, gherkins, apple) and “ Salad with meat” (+ potatoes and cucumbers).

By the eighties, we have several recipes for remakes on the Olivier theme fixed in the obligatory collections: “Capital Salad” (chicken, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, eggs, crabs), meat (everything is the same, only beef or tongue), “Salad with seafood” (fish, shrimp, potatoes, carrots, green peas) and the venerable Game Salad, now served with hazel grouse, tomatoes, beans and cauliflower. All this is generously seasoned with mayonnaise, and each recipe is accompanied by important notes: in the absence of such and such an ingredient, you can replace it with another or even release the dish without it. It is not surprising that in the end, Brezhnev's Olivier turned into a designer salad: what he got, he chopped up. But on the other hand, it is simple and inexpensive to prepare, ideal for cold weather and strong drinks, and recipe options are passed from hostess to hostess and are fixed by family tradition. Olivier safely survives the change of ruling courses and financial crises, again becoming that dish, without which lunch is not lunch.

Cooking in Russian, America, 2003
Russian salad (Olivje salad), a must-have at all Russian parties.
2 boneless and skinless chicken breasts, 1 medium onion, peeled, 6 large potatoes, 6 eggs, 8 medium pickled cucumbers, a cup of green peas, scallions and dill for serving.
Refueling: 1 tbsp. l olive oil, 1 cup mayonnaise, 1 cup sour cream, 1/4 tsp. salt, the same amount of ground pepper.
1. Wash the chicken in cold water. Cut the onion in half. Boil the chicken until it is evenly white.
2. Remove the bow.
3. While the chicken is cooking, wash the potatoes well, put them in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil at high temperature. Boil until the potatoes are easily peeled. Drain the water.
4. While the chicken and potatoes are cooking, place the eggs in a large saucepan. Fill with water and bring to a boil at high temperature. Reduce heat, cover and let sit for 20-25 minutes. Rinse the boiled eggs with cold water until they cool.
5. Cool all ingredients at room temperature before cooking. Cut the chicken into small pieces. Peel potatoes and eggs. Cut potatoes, eggs and cucumbers into cubes. Place in a large salad bowl.
6. Prepare the dressing in a small salad bowl. Mix everything, add dressing and sweet peas to the salad bowl.
In some areas, Russians put carrots or grated apple in olivje. And keep in mind that for a real traditional taste, you can’t take mayonnaise and low-fat sour cream!

2015-12-09

Date: 09 12 2015

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A national favorite, contemptuously rejected by apologists for a healthy diet, it is as natural on any holiday table as a penguin on an ice floe in Antarctica. Where without him! We whittle it with bucket bowls to the immortal songs from The Irony of Fate, which we watch out of the corner of our eyes for the hundredth time. A respectful and slightly familiar address to him speaks only of incredible respect and honor. And what is this hero? Well, of course, Olivier salad or simply "Salad" with a capital letter. About him, or rather, about the transformation of its structure and ingredients, we will talk today, if you do not mind, my reader. After all, it is a phenomenon, a process, an event, and not just food. And yes, once a year I allow myself to eat them without thinking about calories. Olivier salad ingredients from different eras - to the studio!

Pre-Revolutionary Olivier Salad Ingredients

When the object of our love and national pride was born is not known for certain. Once I read that the publisher and editor of the magazine with the non-poetic name "Our food" M. A. Ignatiev ate it with pleasure at the Hermitage restaurant during the All-Russian exhibition of 1882. In those years, master Olivier reigned in the restaurant kitchen. Later, in 1894, the first cult appetizer recipe considered authentic was published in the above-mentioned printed publication. And he was at that time quite simple and democratic. Judge for yourself. It contains absolutely ordinary products for that time, which cannot be said about ours.

The original main composition of the pre-revolutionary period. Olivier "old style"

• Fried grouse.
• Boiled not crumbly potatoes.
• Fresh cucumbers.
• A few leaves of any lettuce.
• Cancer necks.
• Capers.
• Olives.
• Good strong lance.
• Provence.
• Soya Kabul.

Partridge, veal and chicken were offered as a replacement for hazel grouse. It was emphasized that the correct Olivier is possible only with hazel grouse - nothing else. The bird was used exclusively shot, obtained on the hunt. Now even black grouse is grown on poultry farms, and then - only from the forest, be kind enough to bring, pluck, singe, gut, fry! Everything else was an imitation and replacement of the original.

At the beginning of such a tragic and eventful twentieth century, Russian breeders and manufacturers threw money not like a child. At the same time, perhaps the most famous, legendary recipe appeared to the world. It already included elements of bourgeois luxury. I don’t know why, but it is he who is still considered canonical, which, in my opinion, is not true. In addition to the usual classic set above, the following components have been added, as indicated below.

Ingredients of the most bourgeois version

• Boiled eggs.
• Boiled veal tongue.
• Pressed caviar.
• Lobsters (if there were no crayfish).

The dressing remained the same - mayonnaise with French vinegar, Provencal oil and two egg yolks, plus a mysterious sauce from Kabul. Then, in the zero years, in some cookbooks it was recommended to cook a semblance of a famous dish with the remnants of any roast: from beef, veal, black grouse, chicken, and even from non-bony types of fish (with salmon, trout, sturgeon, for example).

What happened? Why did the salad, unpretentious at that time, turn into a spender and a proud man? The explanation is simple. Rapidly developing capitalism in Russia brought home-grown nouveaux riches with their craving for immoderation in food. If caviar - then buckets, if sterlet - so one and a half arshin long. To please the masters of life - variegated capitalists, rich merchants and smaller trading fry, the new owners of the restaurant, which belonged to the unforgettable Olivier, made the menu more chic, with frills and ostentatious chic. Further more. The food began to be laid in layers, truffles were added, and they began to intricately decorate with chilled lanspic. The country was peddling ... And the revolution broke out. That same Russian rebellion - senseless, bloody. However, I'm not talking about...

Soviet segment of the biography of Olivier salad. Biography with lyrical digressions

For some time after the October Revolution, by incomprehensible inertia, pre-revolutionary textbooks and books on bourgeois cooking continued to be printed for some time. They continued to feature "blankets of naturally banquet shot hazel grouse", absolutely unknown to the proletariat in taste and form. Until the thirties of the last century, reprinted cookbooks from a bygone era appeared here and there.

And in 1934, we are witnessing the birth of a certain Soyuznarpit reference book, which (horror!) includes our old and not at all worker-peasant acquaintance. His proud name was bashfully put out of brackets and called Game Salad (olivier). The components are already cut into slices that are understandable to everyone, they don’t shrink much and they directly recommend replacing gherkins and pickles with pickles. Although the remnants of the former chic in the form of crayfish necks for decoration are still present, liberties are indicated along with them, which are green peas and boiled carrots. It remains only a couple of small steps to boiled sausage, comrades! Let's skip the sad series of transformations, perversions and substitutions.

By 1951, an impostor - a certain one - began to appear on the pages of cookbooks. The comparison with False Dimitry is direct. Apparently, the immature student minds could not be injured by a foreign combination of letters. Salad, decorated with eggs and strips of chicken breast, was prepared at all catering points - from the railway station to the Kremlin. Soya-kabul forever gave way to the sauce "Southern" in it, and the prosaic chicken replaced the game birds. God's and meat analogue of Stolichny was born - all the same components, but with the replacement of the trigger for any fried, boiled or even stew.

Closer to the seventies (kind to my heart), the painfully familiar, most Soviet, winter, New Year's version of the recipe began to take shape and conquer the frontiers. With boiled Doktorskaya, canned scarce green peas, a table egg and mayonnaise bought from under the floor. In a small glass jar, remember, elders? I just recently gave the same one.

The triumphal procession of the "sausage-beautiful" from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok fell on the time of the Stagnation ...

Covered in valor and glory Olivier of all times and peoples

• Boiled sausage.
• Potatoes (boiled in their skins).
• Boiled carrots.
• Green peas.
• Hard boiled eggs.
• Pickled cucumbers (possible option with fresh).
• Mayonnaise Provencal.

All products are simply cut into cubes, without further ado. It is more convenient to crush them with basins for a large company with the help of some newfangled gadget. Here vegetable cutters, For example. Simplicity and democracy are back to square one. Only according to time and place. This is the meeting place, which, as you know, cannot be changed. This is how we began to sculpt tons of it from the available components and make friends with families. Associations, memories, aromas, tastes of that salad, namely “Sovdepovsky”, are remembered and honored by millions, its ingredients have not changed for decades. And they are still loved, in spite of or thanks to - add yourself. As you can see, the Soviet segment of the hero's life is very colorful and long.

The latest trend in the structure and ingredients of Olivier salad: nothing to do with the original source

In the nineties, bad taste prevailed in everything, including the recipes for famous dishes. How about a squid salad dressed with yogurt and avocado puree? In what agitated brain was born this dissimilarity? Olivier vegetarian, with shrimp, lobsters, salami and artichokes - just a rampant fantasy of post-Soviet citizens that has escaped to freedom! But we have what we have. And there is no getting away from it. Warms, however, the fact that gradually come out of oblivion old verified recipes, according to which you can again cook, if not with pelvises, but with crystal salad bowls. I hear objections about upland game. Even now you can buy it without leaving your monitor. About "shooting" - I can not vouch, of course.

Well, I briefly covered the topic. I look forward to your comments. Please subscribe to blog updates - all the most interesting things are yet to come! If you find my modest works interesting, then please share the article on social networks.

Always yours Irina.

Women's logic demanded something with a touch of French chic. Probably, the origin of the meter Olivier is to blame ...

Quadro Nuevo - Bonjour Juliette