Lucien Olivier came up with his salad out of spite. The very first and original recipe for the real Olivier Olivier creation story
Almost every Russian loves the usual Olivier salad, made from such inexpensive ingredients as green peas, doctor's sausage, boiled potatoes, carrots, chicken eggs and pickled cucumbers.
In fact, a century ago, this dish was cooked differently, with more expensive ingredients. It was considered a real delicacy and was distinguished by its exquisite, excellent taste.
The history of the creation of salad "Olivier"
The recipe for this delicious snack was invented in the second half of the 19th century by Lucien Olivier, a famous French chef. He settled in Moscow and in 1860 opened a first-class restaurant called the Hermitage. It is believed that it was Lucien who came up with a great appetizer that has become a real work of art.
Her taste struck with its sophistication, harmony and therefore appealed to all visitors to the Hermitage restaurant. Subsequently, many cooks tried to repeat the recipe for the old Olivier salad. But they, not knowing all the secret ingredients, and most importantly, the method of preparing the incomparable white sauce with mustard, were defeated. You could taste the wonderful Olivier salad, a real French one, only in the famous restaurant of Lucien.
How did Lucien Olivier himself prepare the salad?
The French chef jealously kept the recipe for his signature dish secret. Originally, Olivier served it in the following way. Boiled fillets of partridges and hazel grouses were laid out in layers of jelly made from broth and placed in the center of the dish. Boiled crayfish necks and pieces of tongue were laid out around. All this "beauty" was poured with a piquant, slightly spicy sauce (homemade mayonnaise). The dish was decorated with a composition of boiled potatoes, quail eggs and gherkins.
Once the chef noticed that the restaurant visitors mixed all the ingredients with a spoon, breaking the original "design", and then ate the resulting mass with appetite. So the recipe for the old Olivier salad has changed. Lucien began to serve the dish, mixing all the ingredients beforehand and generously flavoring them with Provencal sauce.
Recipe for an old salad "Olivier": the necessary ingredients
There are many variations of this dish. "Olivier" is otherwise called "Russian". Modified for real Russian realities, the salad has lost its sophistication and has become a very common snack, the taste of which is familiar to everyone since childhood. Partridge and hazel grouse meat was replaced with inexpensive boiled sausage. Cancer necks, veal caviar were completely excluded from the recipe. Instead, they began to add boiled carrots and canned peas. Of course, the modern modification is tasty, but somewhat "pall". Therefore, we will tell you how to make a chic appetizer using the recipe for the old Olivier salad.
So, to prepare this delicious dish, you will need the following ingredients:
- veal tongue - 1 pc.;
- three hazel grouse;
- black pressed caviar - 80-100 g;
- potatoes 4 pcs.;
- lettuce leaves - 200 g;
- boiled crayfish - 30 pcs.;
- pickled cucumbers (gherkins) 180-200 g;
- fresh cucumbers - 2 pcs.;
- capers - 100 g;
- quail eggs - 6 pcs.
The following components are required for:
- white wine vinegar - 1 tbsp. l.;
- egg yolk - 2 pcs.;
- olive oil - 6 tbsp. l.;
- spicy mustard - 1 tsp;
- a pinch of ground pepper;
- salt;
- garlic powder.
Salad "Olivier" (real recipe): cooking technology
To begin with, let's deal with the bird and veal tongue. We will wash and, if necessary, gut the carcasses of hazel grouse. By the way, if you do not have the opportunity to purchase this game, you can replace it with quails. After processing, the bird is placed in a pot of water and boiled for one and a half hours. Do not forget to add onion head and salt to taste to the broth.
While the hazel grouses are preparing, let's take care of the tongue. We wash it and boil it for two hours, adding carrots, onions, salt and spices to the broth. After the allotted time, we will get hazel grouses and veal tongue out of the water. Cool the meat and clean it. We remove the skin and bones from the bird, leaving only the fillet. Cut the tongue into small pieces. Now cook the crayfish until cooked, pull out of the water, cool and clean. Next in line are potatoes and eggs. Boil them, cool and clean.
We cut all the ingredients and make dressing
We will tell you further how to cook a real Olivier salad. We select a deep bowl for snacks. We tear and put lettuce leaves in it. We clean fresh cucumbers from the skin and cut into cubes. Grind pickled gherkins and capers. Put everything in a salad bowl. There we also place the prepared veal tongue and the meat of hazel grouse cut into pieces. Chop the quail eggs into small pieces.
We leave our dish alone for now and make mayonnaise sauce. Raw yolks, mustard and salt are mixed with a whisk. Pour olive oil into these ingredients in a thin stream, kneading the mass thoroughly until it thickens. Add vinegar, ground pepper and garlic powder to the sauce. Everything, mayonnaise is ready.
We dress our Olivier salad with sauce. This recipe involves decorating the dish with black pressed caviar and crayfish tails. That's all, a delicious snack is ready. Now you know how to cook a real Olivier salad. As you can see, it's not difficult, the main thing is to get all the necessary ingredients and make homemade mayonnaise sauce. Enjoy your meal!
Another version of Olivier salad for your holiday table
If you want to pamper your family with a gourmet dish, prepare the Olivier salad. This is the real French recipe. To create this culinary masterpiece, you will need the following products:
- quail eggs - 6 pcs.;
- potatoes - 3-4 pieces;
- quails - 3 pcs.;
- pickled cucumbers - 2-3 pcs.;
- fresh cucumbers - 2 pcs.;
- veal tongue - 200 g;
- carrots - 2 pcs.;
- pickled capers - 100 g;
- champignons - 100 g;
- canned cancer necks - 50 g;
- - 30 g;
- olives - 50 g;
- chives 20 g
The recipe for the old salad "Olivier" involves the use of a special one for the preparation of which you will need olive oil - 100 ml, egg yolks - 3 pcs., wine vinegar - 2 tsp. Also needed are lemon juice - 2 tsp, Dijon mustard - 1 tsp, salt and pepper to taste.
The process of preparing an excellent snack
The old recipe for "Olivier" is as follows: boil the potatoes in their skins and carrots, cool, peel and then cut the vegetables into cubes. Boil the eggs in boiling water for 5 minutes, cool and peel. Cut the yolks and whites from three eggs into large pieces, and cut the remaining whites in half (they will be needed to decorate the salad). Wash the quail carcasses, wipe with a paper towel, coat with vegetable oil, pepper and salt. Place the bird in the pan and fry it over high heat for 7 minutes until golden brown. Then place the quails for 15-20 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 ° C. After baking, cool the bird, separate the meat from the skin and bones, cut it into cubes.
Serve "Olivier" to the table
Wash the veal tongue and boil for 1.5-2 hours in salted water. Then let it cool and cut into small pieces. Chop pickled and fresh cucumbers (without skin) and olives. Canned cancer necks cut into large pieces, you can into two parts. Lightly toast the capers in a dry frying pan. Place all ingredients in a deep container and mix gently.
Everything, our Olivier salad is almost ready. An old recipe involves the preparation of the original mayonnaise dressing. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with a whisk, adding salt, mustard, pepper to them. Pour in the olive oil while continuing to whisk. Add lemon juice and wine vinegar there. Pour dressed sauce over salad. Serve the dish garnished with egg whites with caviar, chives, champignons, lightly fried in a pan, and crayfish tails. Enjoy your meal!
In France and Turkey, various simplified versions of this salad, which appeared among the emigrants after 1917, are still called "Russian salad" and are very popular. Later, these recipes laid the foundation for the famous "Soviet Olivier".
But only the original salad recipe, developed in the second half of the 19th century by a Moscow chef-restaurateur, a Frenchman by origin, Lucien Olivier, is truly magnificent. He was from the famous Olivier culinary family in France. At the beginning of the 19th century, a culinary specialist from this family also invented a recipe for Provence mayonnaise, adding 4-5% mustard and some secret spices to the classic mayonnaise for spiciness, which made the mayonnaise amazing in taste. It was the special mayonnaise that distinguished the Olivier salad from all the others.
In addition to a delicious salad, Russians have enriched French cuisine with the word "bistro", which comes from the Russian "quickly".
When the Russian troops who defeated Napoleon reached France, drunken Russian Cossacks in the occupied territory, bursting into various eateries, yelled “Quickly! Quickly!”, banging his fists on the counter and hurrying the already frightened French tavern-keepers.
But the then Russian military, unlike our time, were not constrained in monetary allowance, therefore they never stooped to robberies, in Russian widely demonstrating their generosity.
Catching that Russian soldiers not only loudly demand, but also pay well, and often “forget” to take change, the owners of the establishments soon began to hang signboards that were attractive to the Russian occupiers, written in the French style: “BISTRO”.
It is curious that in those days, many Russian military spoke excellent French. This greatly facilitated front-line reconnaissance during the Patriotic War of 1812. Noble officers from different combat detachments simply changed into French uniforms and, having penetrated the enemy’s location, sat down by the fires, conducting free conversations on various topics with unsuspecting French soldiers and officers.
During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. this was already simply impossible due to ignorance of the language.
The history of the creation of a real salad "Olivier"
For many decades, Muscovites' festive feast - from a rich restaurant table to a student party - has always included a traditional dish with a French aristocratic name - Olivier salad. Each of us has eaten it more than once. But is this "Olivier"? Let's see history.
This salad was invented in the 1860s by French chef Lucien Olivier (1838-1883), a Moscow restaurateur, owner of the Hermitage tavern on Trubnaya Square. The building of the tavern has been preserved, this is house 14 on Petrovsky Boulevard, corner of Neglinnaya, now it houses a publishing house and a theater.
V.A. Gilyarovsky, in his essay “On the Pipe”, dedicated to Trubnaya Square, tells about the circumstances due to which the Hermitage tavern appeared on this square. In the 1860s, cigarette smoking was only just coming into vogue, but there were plenty of snuff lovers out there. Sniffers and sniffers valued precisely this kind of tobacco use by the fact that you can "sniff" in any place and society and, unlike smoking, "you won't spoil the air." Amateur snuff was held in special esteem, ground in a special way and with various additives. The guards were engaged in the preparation of such tobacco, each had his own recipe and his own clientele.
Among the buyers of the watchman on Trubnaya Square were the wealthy Moscow merchant Yakov Pegov and the well-known French chef Olivier in Moscow, about whom they said that he was the only one in the capital who could arrange a real dinner, and who was invited to the most aristocratic and wealthy houses to arrange ceremonial dinners. . Meeting at the watchman's, Pegov and Olivier agreed to jointly purchase a plot of land on which this very booth and a neighboring drinking establishment, known to the surrounding residents as the Afonkin Tavern, stood, and set up a first-class restaurant here.
In the mid-1860s, a building with white-columned halls, separate offices, sparkling mirrors, chandeliers and palatial luxury of decoration and furniture was built. The new establishment was named "Tavern "Hermitage" Olivier".
In all respects, the new inn looked like the highest-class restaurant in Paris. The only difference was that instead of tailcoats, the waiters were dressed in the traditional way for Russian taverns. Like ordinary Russian uniforms, but in very expensive clothes: in white thin Dutch linen shirts, belted with natural silk belts. The selection for a finely slender appearance was also appropriate.
Restaurant "Hermitage" on Trubnaya Square (at various times at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries).
Restaurant Olivier "Hermitage", summer hall.
In the "Hermitage" one could taste the same dishes that were served in the mansions of nobles.
Throughout its existence (until 1923), the Hermitage was an expensive "chic restaurant". The entire Moscow nobility immediately became visitors and regulars of the restaurant. In the 1980s and 1990s, Moscow foreign merchants were added here, and then rich Russian merchants came, acquiring a European gloss.
The Hermitage was also visited by the intelligentsia; solemn and anniversary dinners were held in its halls: in 1879 in honor of I.S. Turgenev, in 1880 - in honor of F.M. Dostoevsky, in 1899 on the centenary of the birth of A.S. Pushkin, a Pushkin dinner was held, which was attended by the most famous writers of the time. Various anniversaries of a university professor were celebrated here, and students had fun on Tatiana's Day, but student feasts were very different from decorous "professor's dinners".
The main attraction of the Hermitage cuisine was a salad invented by the owner of an unusually delicate taste - “Olivier Salad”, the method of preparation of which he kept secret. Many cooks have tried to prepare this salad, but none of them succeeded. Thus, the property, as well as, to some extent, social qualifications largely determined the very possibility of "joining" the famous salad.
The history of the origin of the famous salad is as follows. Initially, the Frenchman invented for his restaurant not a salad at all, but a dish called “Game Mayonnaise”. For him, fillets of hazel grouses and partridges were boiled, cut, laid out on a dish interspersed with cubes of jelly from bird broth. Boiled crayfish necks and slices of tongue, poured with Provence sauce, were gracefully placed nearby. And in the center stood a pile of potatoes with pickled gherkins, garnished with slices of hard-boiled eggs. As conceived by Olivier, the central "slide" was not intended for food, but only for beauty, as an element of the decor of the dish.
Soon, Olivier saw that many Russian ignoramuses served “Mayonnaise from game” immediately mixed with a spoon like porridge, destroying the carefully thought-out design, then put it on their plates and eat this mixture with pleasure. He was horrified by what he saw. But the next day, the inventive Frenchman, as a sign of contempt, defiantly mixed all the ingredients, pouring plenty of mayonnaise on them. Lucien Olivier turned out to be right in the creative consideration of Russian taste - the success of the new dish was grandiose!
Thus, Olivier's original culinary idea was almost immediately vulgarized - and the dish he invented actually changed the "genre".
In other words, the very first “game mayonnaise”, the progenitor of our salad “Olivier”, died, unable to withstand the onslaught of the barbaric habits of customers, for whom the value of the dish as a plentiful meal and, importantly, it is a convenient snack “with vodka” is clearly dominated his aesthetic.
The salad has become the main attraction for visitors. His recipe was a secret that Olivier took with him to his grave. But, after a short oblivion, the recipe was restored in 1904 from the memory of one of the gourmets - regulars of the restaurant.
Here is the composition of the real Olivier salad (however, already during the period of its decline - 1904, and its creator took the secret of the true Olivier with him) is as follows:
Reconstruction of a real salad "Olivier"
So Olivier took:
one boiled veal tongue,
added about 100 grams of black pressed caviar (do not replace black granular caviar - ruin everything),
200 grams of fresh lettuce,
25 boiled crayfish or 1 can of lobster
half a can of soy kabul - this is a kind of soy sauce-paste produced at that time (a similarity to the Yuzhny and Moskovsky sauces later produced in the USSR, which also contained soy hydrolyzate),
finely chopped five hard-boiled eggs.
They filled all this bourgeois delicacy with Provence sauce, which was supposed to be prepared with French vinegar, two fresh egg yolks and a pound (400 grams) of Provence olive oil.
The main secret of the amazing taste of the salad was a small amount of certain seasonings that Olivier personally added to his mayonnaise in the secret room. It was the composition of these spices that could not be reliably restored. Well, the rest of the products included in the salad were in full view, so they did not represent a special secret.
We will consider in detail the preparation of a real Olivier salad in a modern version below, and now let's get back to history.
After the death of Lucien Olivier, the owner of the restaurant "Great Hermitage" (as the tavern began to be called at the beginning of the 20th century) was the "Olivier Partnership", the composition of which changed several times. During the revolution of 1917, the restaurant was closed, various institutions were housed in the building, during the NEP years there was a restaurant again, and from 1923 to 1941 it housed the Peasant's House.
In the "Great Hermitage" and in the NEP restaurant, the menu invariably included the signature "Olivier salad", but V.A. Gilyarovsky believed that already under the heirs of Olivier, the salad was no longer the same as it had been under its inventor, but served to the Nepmen in various restaurants after the 1917 revolution, and was completely “made of bits”.
“The growing socialist construction is tightening the ring around Nepach more and more. The only consolation is drinking in one's own circle, with the windows covered. The best reason for this is the meeting of the "Old New Year", according to the old style. The working people have already advanced thirteen days in 1927, and the NEPach is just seeing off drunken tears of 1926... vessel - Olivier salad ... "
By 1929, both Nepmen and restaurants for them were finally liquidated. The rest of the rationed and constantly starving people after 1917 had no time for salads. For them, simple natural tea (not carrot!) and a sandwich with boiled sausage were a rare holiday delicacy.
In Soviet Russia, the Olivier salad disappeared, like many other bourgeois relics.
After the seizure of power in 1917 by the Bolsheviks in Soviet Russia, there was no time for culinary delights. Everyone was obliged to deal only with the World Revolution and serving the Bolsheviks. Those who did not serve were deprived of food cards, which meant inevitable starvation.
The defeat in the war with Germany, the fratricidal civil war and the actions of the Bolsheviks in those years, the country was ravaged to the ground.
On the streets there are huge numbers of homeless children, war cripples, refugee families with children, homeless vagrants...
The people were starving, many died of hunger and cold ...
At that time, the great Russian poet of the 20th century, Vladimir Mayakovsky, writes:
Not home, not for soup,
and visit your beloved
I carry two carrots
for the green tail.
I gave a lot of sweets and bouquets,
but more than all the expensive gifts
I remember this precious carrot
and half a log of birch firewood.
Ahead of the Soviet people were still waiting for serious wars (in Spain, in the Far East, in Finland, the Great Patriotic War, again in the Far East), the death of tens of millions of people in the war and in Stalin's camps, terrible military devastation, the restoration of the economy from the ruins, the strain of all forces countries in the creation of nuclear missile weapons by the will of Stalin and other historical adventures.
It seemed that the very word "Olivier" was completely forgotten.
A new history of salad "Olivier"
Soviet salad "Olivier", which came from an emigrant abroad
However, having ended its history so sadly, first in its own restaurant, and then throughout the country, Olivier salad returned to the USSR from emigration in the 1950s and began to win a place on the tables of “advanced elite” Muscovites (including Moscow restaurant menus) , and soon all Soviet people.
The simplified Olivier recipe arose among the impoverished Russian emigration that fled after the 1917 revolution, as a triumph of the ingenuity of emigrant housewives who wanted, as far as possible, to imitate the old fashionable recipes.
This uncomplicated "emigrant" Olivier salad returned to the USSR from France after the 2nd World War as a result of expanding diplomatic contacts with Europe, and especially massively after the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1957.
The emigrant version of the salad was quickly creatively adapted by Soviet housewives and restaurant chefs to the conditions of the then Soviet reality, in which not only lobsters, familiar to France, but even capers were absent.
Green peas were sold only in "orders", so they were stockpiled specifically for Olivier. The “difficulty of obtaining” canned peas in the conditions of the economy of “developed socialism” elevated it to the rank of a “prestigious” product, which not only turned the entire dish into which it was included into a “special”, “festive”, but also in a sense increased the status of others. its ingredients are the "neighbors" of peas in the Olivier salad.
Mayonnaise was in a terrible shortage and was produced only in large cities.
Therefore, even the very words “mayonnaise-provencal” and “Olivier salad” set the Soviet people in a special festive, almost foreign way and attracted attention in contrast with the names of most other familiar dishes.
In the 1960s, the Soviet recipe was radically different from both the famous restaurant original of the 19th century and the emigre version, which only contributed to the popular love of Russians for this salad, gradually adapted to the tastes of people and to the availability of common and affordable products. Only mayonnaise remained from Lucien Olivier's original recipe.
All sorts of lobsters, hazel grouse, beef tongue were then replaced with boiled sausages and sausages (by the way, then they were quite full-fledged). Soy, which was not very common at that time and, as it turned out later, quite harmful in nutrition, was replaced by healthy green peas. At that time, Soviet industrial mayonnaise was quite consistent with the proper recipe.
The salad was tasty and nutritious. But in restaurant versions even then the sausage was replaced with boiled beef or chicken.
Since the 1960s in the USSR, and now in post-Soviet Russia, no festive table is unthinkable without the Olivier salad, the recipe of which is very arbitrary, based on the possibilities.
Only now, modern boiled sausages and sausages, as well as the current falsified industrial “mayonnaise”, have recently become simply unacceptable in human nutrition. Therefore, now successfully use any boiled meat, chicken and self-made real mayonnaise sauce in recipes, which is very simple. But boiled potatoes in their skins and canned peas still remain the same.
The components of the simplest salad "Olivier" are boiled potatoes (even better for a salad - potatoes baked in the oven, or fret potatoes boiled in a saturated salt solution) and boiled sausage, diced, canned green peas and industrial mayonnaise. Otherwise, this salad gives the hostess complete freedom of imagination. One lady, giving the recipe, said: "I also put everything that is in the house."
Salad "Olivier" has become the "calling card" of the festive table, it is mandatory, even if in addition to it there were some more expensive or exotic pickles. The significance of "Olivier" for the festive meal was emphasized primarily by the practices of serving and serving it, which were of a completely ritualized nature. He was always in the middle of the table. The main. It is customary to serve "Olivier" in salad bowls "smartly-festively-glass-porcelain" - whoever has what. For some, a crystal vase was obligatory, as a sign of luxury and prestige.
The unwritten convention to start with "Olivier" ensured the inclusion, or "pass", in the entire subsequent meal. It is significant that the late guests, regardless of the stage of development of the feast, were first of all served with Olivier.
“Olivier”, in the minds of the audience, was mainly a festive dish, its eating was the watershed that finally separated everything “pre-holiday” from the actual holiday, allowed to distance - and collectively - from everyday life and further, putting aside any worldly care, plunge into another reality.
The latter was greatly facilitated by the fact that Olivier, as the very first dish on a festive plate, was also the first snack for drinking. Under the first toast, as a rule, Olivier went, the meal began with it. Because everything was there. For every taste! This is a good snack for a drink. You could drink and not get very drunk! It has been customary to use Olivier in this way since the time of Olivier's Hermitage Tavern.
The latest history of salad "Olivier"
The next band in the life of "Olivier" came in the 1990s. Some felt that they no longer enjoyed eating the Soviet Olivier, because it was too simple, it suddenly became “bored” and “tired”. In the hierarchy of post-Soviet cuisine, the Soviet “Olivier” was transferred to a lower position, he made room for other dishes, and became more ordinary.
To a large extent, this is due to the fact that Russian industrial sausages and mayonnaise, which are traditionally part of it, have now become simply inedible - the taste and nutritional value of the salad prepared with them does not correspond to what should be.
First, Olivier was replaced by salads with corn, then salads with shrimp and crab sticks, Korean and Japanese salads, Mexican and Spanish salads, and many others. It began to be correct and prestigious not to follow tradition, but to show “fantasy” and “artistry”, and not everyone associated the good old “Olivier” with these concepts.
Of course, Olivier is not going to give up its positions just like that - after all, its main, “material” function, “nutrition”, has not disappeared anywhere, and people, including guests, still need to be fed.
Having adapted to the new capitalist Russian conditions, "Olivier" not only retains the old "clientele", but also successfully recruits a new one. Olivier is especially loved by children and young people.
True, for young people this dish is now devoid of that aura of festivity that is so memorable to older people. For them, this is not a festive element at all, and his French name no longer sounds with its former charm.
With the current availability of products, Olivier has become a simple and quick dish to prepare at the usual home table.
Only in Russia today, instead of inedible modern Russian sausages, it is necessary to use various meat cut into pieces and season with real mayonnaise, prepared on your own (especially for children). The popularity of such a completely full-fledged "Soviet Olivier" for both your family members and guests will increase significantly.
Recipes of the Soviet salad "Olivier"
The most common proletarian salad recipe "Olivier"
Ingredients:
Green peas (0.5 cans),
potatoes (2-3 pieces),
boiled sausage (100 g),
onion (1 onion),
mayonnaise,
chicken eggs (5 pieces).
Cooking:
Boil eggs and cut into small pieces, add green peas and finely chopped onion. Pour boiled and chopped potatoes in the same place, also make sausage. Season everything with mayonnaise and salt. Very simple and tasty salad. (If boiled chicken is taken instead of sausage, then this is the Stolichny restaurant salad, and if boiled beef, then the Moscow restaurant salad).
Salad "Olivier" with pickles (student salad)
For one serving, finely chopped:
half an egg,
half a cucumber
half a potato
a tablespoon of green peas
onion quarter,
sausages are a thin circle.
And everything is filled with mayonnaise.
Salad "Olivier" with pickled cucumbers
200 grams of boiled chicken or sausage, three potatoes, 3 eggs, a couple of pickled cucumbers, onions and peas to taste. Everything is finely crumbled and poured with mayonnaise.
More advanced Soviet recipe
Ingredients for 6-7 servings:
Meat of 1 chicken breast or 200 g of boiled beef,
400 g potatoes, boiled in their skins,
2 medium pickled (or pickled) cucumbers,
1 cup canned green peas
1 medium onion, finely chopped
200 g mayonnaise,
2 hard-boiled eggs,
6 large black olives
8 sprigs of parsley.
Cooking:
Cut the boiled chicken, potatoes and peeled cucumbers into small cubes. Gently toss meat, potatoes, cucumbers, green peas and finely chopped onion. Add mayonnaise and salt to taste and stir without crushing the vegetables. Refrigerate before serving. If you want to make a vegetable salad, do not add chicken meat.
Salad "Olivier" with apples
Ingredients:
200 g boiled chicken,
6 potatoes
3 carrots
3 bulbs
2 pickled cucumbers,
1 apple
3 eggs,
glass of green peas
200 g mayonnaise
salt
ground pepper
greens.
Cooking:
Boiled chicken meat, boiled carrots, potatoes, eggs, pickled cucumbers, sweet apples, peeled, finely chopped, add canned green peas, salt, pepper to taste. Mix everything carefully and put it in a salad bowl. Pour the salad with mayonnaise and garnish with sprigs of dill and parsley.
Salad "Olivier" with carrots
Ingredients for 4-6 servings:
Potatoes - 5-6 small
carrots - 2-3 medium sized
sausage - 200-300 gr
green peas -1 bank
pickled cucumber - 2 pcs
mayonnaise - 3 tbsp. spoons
you can add a medium-sized onion and finely chopped parsley and dill.
Salad "Olivier" with cabbage
Ingredients:
2 cups shredded cabbage
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into thin strips
1 large potato, boiled in their skins and cut into small cubes
1 medium apple, peeled and de-seeded, cut into small cubes
2 chopped hard-boiled eggs,
1 cup boiled fresh or frozen green peas
Refueling:
0.75 cup homemade "mayonnaise-like" sauce (see below)
0.5 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
0.5 teaspoon of sugar
salt and black ground pepper to taste.
Cooking:
Gently mix all the salad ingredients in a large bowl without mashing them, season generously with salt and pepper. In another bowl, mix the dressing thoroughly. Drizzle dressing over salad, cover and refrigerate until serving.
"Mayonnaise-like" homemade sauce
Ingredients:
1 large egg, room temperature
1 steep yolk,
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons or more freshly squeezed lemon juice
a pinch of salt and ground white pepper to taste
1 glass of vegetable oil.
Cooking:
In a blender, mix the egg, yolk, mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly until smooth. With the blender running, add the oil in a slow but steady stream. Taste and add spices if needed. (Makes about 1.33 cups) Transfer to a storage container and refrigerate. Can be stored up to 5 days.
The newspaper "Vechernyaya Moskva" in the New Year's issue of 1995 gave its recipe for "Olivier in the New Year's performance", recommending "to give the usual Olivier salad a New Year's tone":
New Year's salad "Olivier" from "Evening Moscow"
“Each housewife, of course, remembers that potatoes and eggs (the same amount), boiled meat, pickled (or better pickled) cucumbers, green peas, apples, mayonnaise are put in this salad. "Olivier" should be laid out on a round dish, and around - 12 circles of boiled potatoes. We cut the carrots into strips and put Roman numerals from 1 to XII on each potato circle. In the middle we will place a circle of cucumber or tomato, and from the onion we will make the hands of the clock.
But the Moscow newspaper "Moskovskaya Pravda" in its supplement "Night Rendezvous" (for aesthetic night owls) gives another recipe, more aristocratic:
Olivier salad from Moskovskaya Pravda
“You take six potatoes (medium size, everything will be medium size), three carrots, 2 onions, 1 - 2 small pickled (not salted) cucumbers, 1 apple, 200 grams of boiled chicken or other game (do not try to use boiled sausage according to the Soviet habit !), a glass of canned green peas, three eggs and 1-2 cans of mayonnaise. Of course, you boil potatoes, carrots, chicken and eggs, then cut them thinly and mix them gently. Before serving what happened, do not forget to decorate with thin slices of cucumbers, strips of chicken meat, on top - a sprig of parsley-dill, an apple slice.
But alas! - these are no longer Olivier salad recipes, this is our native Soviet-Russian myth about this salad.
Now in Russia, a mixture of any products that are at hand and cut into cubes, generously seasoned with a surrogate store "mayonnaise", people call salad "Olivier".
Cooking a real Russian salad "Olivier"
Of course, the preparation of this salad requires the purchase of many raw materials and is rather laborious outside the restaurant kitchen, so it is unlikely to become an ordinary dish on your home table, but on a holiday, especially on New Year's Eve, it can become a signature dish.
By the way, you can take this salad in the form of separate ready-made ingredients with you on a visit, and quickly cut, mix and season everything on the spot just before serving.
The composition of this salad in modern conditions:
Meat of two boiled hazel grouses,
one boiled veal tongue,
about 100 grams of black pressed caviar (this is a completely different product than granular black caviar; granular caviar will spoil everything with caviar fish flavor),
200 grams of fresh lettuce,
25 boiled crayfish or 1 large boiled lobster or 1 can of lobsters
half a can of very small pickled cucumbers (pickuli),
half a can of soybeans canned without tomato, with the addition of Southern or Moscow sauce, or soy sauce, to taste,
two chopped fresh cucumbers,
100 grams of capers (a prickly vegetable crop, in which flower buds are pickled),
finely chopped 5 large eggs, hard boiled.
Refueling:
Mayonnaise Provencal, made from 400 grams of high-quality refined olive oil (do not replace with other refined oil!), Two fresh orange egg yolks of selected large chicken eggs (if the eggs are of a regular size, then 3-4 yolks will be required), vinegar, mustard, sugar and salt .
In no case should you use a surrogate "mayonnaise" from the store for dressing - it will irreparably spoil the delicate taste of this salad!
Cooking:
1) Briefly spin the hazel grouse in a layer of hot oil 1-2 cm thick over intense heat until a slightly fried crust forms on all sides (but not until ready!). Then transfer to boiling water or broth (chicken or beef) and add about 150 ml of Madeira per 850 ml of broth, 10-20 mushrooms, 10-20 pitted olives and cook under a tightly closed lid over low heat for 20-30 minutes, until the meat will not easily separate from the bones. Salt lightly 3-5 minutes before the end of cooking.
Place the saucepan with the contents in cold water to cool slightly. (If you start separating the meat of hazel grouse from the bones in a too hot state, the meat will dry out during the cutting process due to excessive evaporation of moisture. But you don’t have to keep ready-made hazel grouses in the broth for a long time so that they don’t get wet. And if you cool to a cold state, then the separation of meat from the bones will be difficult.) Wrap the separated meat in a film or foil and place in the refrigerator. Use mushrooms and the resulting broth for other dishes.
If necessary, two hazel grouses can be replaced with one medium-sized chicken, which should be cut lengthwise into two parts before spinning. Boil the chicken for 30-40 minutes.
2) When buying a tongue, make sure it is free of fat, sublingual muscle tissue, lymph nodes, larynx, hyoid bone, mucus and blood. If it is beef tongue of an adult, then half of the tongue will be enough.
Rinse tongue thoroughly with water before cooking. Put the tongue in cold water, bring to a boil and cook over low heat (so that it floats “on the bulge”) with the lid tightly closed for 2-4 hours, depending on the age of the individual. 30 minutes before the end of cooking, add sliced carrots, parsley root, onions and half a bay leaf. Salt a little 10 minutes before the end of cooking.
After readiness, immediately transfer the tongue from the broth to a bowl of cold water for 20-30 seconds, put it on a plate and immediately remove the skin from it. If your tongue starts to burn your fingers while cleaning, dip it briefly in cold water again and continue cleaning. Then put the peeled tongue back into the broth, quickly bring to a boil, turn off the heat and put the covered pan to cool in cold water. Remove the tongue from the cooled broth, wrap it in a film or foil and place in the refrigerator.
3) Cut caviar (but not black granular!) into small cubes and put in a salad along with other products.
About pressed caviar. Pressed caviar is much more difficult to produce, but it is also tastier than grained caviar (it has a delicate oily taste and a very delicate aroma). When preparing pressed caviar, the mass of the original fresh caviar decreases significantly more than when preparing granular caviar, but this ensures not only an excellent taste, but also good preservation in the absence of preservatives that are simply necessary in granular caviar (in fact, a product that cannot be stored at all!) going on sale in the trading network. Oddly enough, in the Soviet Union it was cheaper and therefore was perceived by the culinary illiterate population as “second-class” caviar. The complexity and laboriousness of the preparation technology, a significant decrease in the mass of the product at the exit led to the virtual disappearance of pressed caviar from the shelves of modern Russian stores.
For the manufacture of pressed caviar, after catching fish, the caviar is immediately salted in ovaries, and then laid out in splints (small troughs) and slightly dried (winded). After that, the caviar is freed from the eggs, cleaned of all veins and mucus and crushed in vats with pushers, which is why the eggs become dense, flat and acquire a special taste that arises from the combination of slightly dried (fermented) eggs with fresher, soaked, saturated brackish sturgeon fat.
4) Lettuce leaves are thoroughly washed, dried with a towel and finely chopped just before putting them into the salad.
5) Wash live crayfish with cold water (sleeping crayfish and lobsters are unsuitable for cooking), lower them upside down into a pot of boiling water, into which finely chopped:
Parsley 25 g,
carrots 25 g,
tarragon fresh 10 g or a little dry,
onion 25 g,
dill 30-40 g,
1 bay leaf,
salt 50 g,
a little bit of allspice.
(i.e. boiling is carried out in the so-called kurt-broth)
Quickly bring to a boil again, reduce the heat, cover the pan with a lid and cook the crayfish for 10 minutes from the moment of boiling.
Turn off the fire without opening the lid, let it brew. Remove ready-made crayfish from the broth 5-10 minutes after the end of cooking, cool and remove the meat from the crayfish necks and claws.
When boiling lobster (lobster), everything is the same, but cooking continues for 40 minutes, then leave under the lid for 10 minutes.
Wrap the resulting meat tightly in a film and place in the refrigerator or immediately cut and lay in a salad.
If using canned lobster, drain liquid and use finely chopped meat in salad.
The meat of crayfish and lobsters is very tender, therefore it is put into the salad last, together with eggs, pressed caviar and fresh cucumbers.
6) Finely chop the pickles before adding them to the salad.
7) Half a can of canned soy without tomato - drain the liquid, grind into a paste and add to taste (but a little!) South or Moscow sauce, or soy sauce. If soy with tomato - put in a colander, rinse with boiling water, cool, grind, add sauce and put in a salad.
To taste, soy can not be kneaded and put in the salad as a whole.
8) Fresh cucumbers must be peeled and finely chopped.
9) Use half a glass of ready-made canned pickled capers, after draining the liquid.
10) Place the eggs in cold water, quickly bring to a boil and boil for 7-8 minutes depending on the size. Don't overcook the eggs! Then immediately fill with cold water and let cool. If the eggs are not very large, then you may need to take 6-8 eggs.
Finely chop all the listed ingredients, put them together in a bowl and mix gently, seasoning with mayonnaise.
Some products can be used incompletely, leaving a little to decorate the salad on top.
Serve immediately.
To taste, you can use no more spicy Provence mayonnaise for salad dressing, but classic mayonnaise sauce - this will provide a delicate, natural and refined taste of the salad (which was chosen by the regulars of the establishment Lucien Olivier when ordering). When choosing, the culinary specialist should take into account the amount of alcohol previously drunk by the guests - the more drunk, the spicier the salad (up to a small addition of ready-made mustard and tarragon). Children are dressed with classic mayonnaise sauce.
Muscovites still honor the memory of Olivier - the man and the salad
In December 2006, at the Vvedensky (former German) cemetery of the capital (now it is the 12th section of the cemetery), Moscow restaurateurs laid wreaths and commemorated the legendary inventor of salad, Lucien Olivier, with a kind word.
In the 60s of the XIX century, he owned the Hermitage restaurant and was one of the founders of modern Russian cuisine. Later, already in the USSR, many of his developments formed the basis of Soviet cooking (see the famous "Culinary" and "The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food" of Stalin's publications).
No one knows the exact date of the invention of the famous salad by the French restaurateur. Just like the exact recipe for Olivier, which was a specialty of the expensive Moscow Hermitage tavern on Trubnaya Square. Now there is the Theater of the Modern Play with a very cheap cafe, the student menu of which in 2006 included (and maybe still does - check for yourself), for example, a dish called "What's left of yesterday" for 5 rubles.
It is known that Lucien Olivier died at the age of 45 in 1883, and his famous dish, modified under the pressure of historical eras and culinary ingenuity, is now called “Russian salad” all over the world. Over the course of a century, the ingredients of the salad have completely changed: the dish has become a real hallmark of Russian cuisine, it is prepared both in expensive establishments and for home feasts.
In Soviet times, all catering establishments set an allowable margin, - says Igor Bukharov, President of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers of Russia. The restaurant markup for signature dishes was the highest. And since Olivier salad is easy to prepare, almost every restaurant in Moscow made it their signature dish, adding something of their own. This is how the salads "Capital", "Moskovsky" and several others appeared.
Therefore, the argument about what to cook a real Soviet Olivier with - with chicken, beef or sausage - is meaningless. Strictly speaking, in our time, Olivier salad can be safely considered any set of ingredients cut into cubes and seasoned with Provencal mayonnaise. That is why the history of the main holiday dish of the country is indicative: in Russia, few people are interested in the history of national cuisine.
Lucien Olivier took the recipe for his salad to the grave, and only in 1904 was the likeness of his creation recreated, - continues Igor Bukharov. Even less is known about other dishes of national cuisine. Not everyone knows what a folk dish, like dumplings, has been eaten in Russia for no more than 130 years, and its name came from the name of the city of Perm (this is Bukharov's personal opinion). They don’t know that at the beginning of the 20th century in the Moscow region, in the oak forests near Troitsk, up to five tons of black truffles were collected per season, and they were searched not with pigs or dogs, as in Europe, but with tame cubs, which were then everywhere in abundance ...
Having laid wreaths and red carnations at the grave of the famous culinary specialist (one of the representatives of the restaurant business joked that carnations on black marble looked very revolutionary), the restaurateurs, who gathered to celebrate the centenary of the establishment of the Mutual Aid Society of Tavern Owners, remembered the main merit of Lucien Olivier. It was from the 60s of the XIX century, when Olivier amazed Moscow with his culinary delights, that the restaurant business in Russia began to flourish.
Culinary recipes of Lucien Olivier, obtained by other restaurateurs by bribing or poaching chefs, were widely used in many expensive establishments and even published in newspapers.
Many recipes of the famous Frenchman are still used in the practice of restaurants and cafes, although often in a very simplified form.
Almost no festive celebration in our country is complete without the preparation of Olivier salad. This is especially true of New Year's Eve, which is already difficult to imagine without this legendary dish on the table. Many people know that the salad owes its name to chef Lucien Olivier.
However, not everyone knows that the famous dish was invented by him in Russia, and the Russians themselves had a hand in this. The brilliant chef took many secrets of the salad with him to the grave. Nevertheless, we can imagine what this dish looked like at the end of the 19th century and how the modern Olivier differs from the original version.
A Brief History of Olivier Salad
How the Olivier salad was created
The history of the creation of the salad, which we call “Olivier”, begins with the fact that in the 19th century, the French chef Lucien Olivier went to Moscow in order to, as it is fashionable to say now, “earn extra money”. After several years of work in Russia, having acquired a small capital, he opened his own institution called the Hermitage. It was a first-class ambiance restaurant for the elite, employing more than thirty chefs who prepared amazing delicacies.
For that time, the fashion for everything French in cooking was characteristic, so the institution was very popular. The kitchen offered in the Hermitage also played a big role in this. After all, Lucien Olivier liked to add branded mayonnaise with mustard and some secret ingredients to various dishes, as a result of which the dish acquired the necessary taste and sharpness.
After many years of success, the popularity of the restaurant has declined somewhat, and visitors have gradually begun to get bored with the taste of French and Russian cuisine served here. It was necessary to come up with something new, unusual. And then Lucien created that very wonderful and delicious salad, which later brought him world fame. By the way, many chefs tried to repeat the author's success, but the Frenchman strictly kept all the secrets of his culinary discovery, so these attempts were not very successful.
But it should be noted that the restaurant visitors themselves have made a significant contribution to the creation of the famous salad. After all, Lucien originally prepared an exquisite dish “Mayonnaise from a game”, in which there were many individual ingredients, including, for example, boiled potatoes, fillet of hazel grouse, eggs, spicy cucumbers, boiled tongue. The French chef beautifully decorated his culinary invention by decomposing a complex dish into separate parts. When Lucien brought it to the table and began to observe whether his new dish would be to the taste of the guests, he was genuinely amazed.
The fact is that guests of the institution, who were not the most experienced in cooking, took a spoon in their hands and mixed all the components of a gourmet dish, thus turning it into an ordinary salad. Then the next time Olivier himself mixed all the ingredients and served the salad that later became famous. Moreover, he did this with the aim of hurting the most unscrupulous eaters, but his irony was not understood at all by the visitors of the restaurant. But they instantly fell in love with the salad "Olivier" and the high popularity of the institution was restored.
Real "Olivier": a classic salad recipe
The classic Olivier salad recipe, created by a French restaurateur, has not survived to this day. Lucien Olivier never revealed all the subtleties and secrets of preparing his dish. Nevertheless, over time, primarily thanks to the reviews of regular visitors to the Hermitage restaurant, it was still possible to restore at least the composition of the ingredients of that very original Olivier salad.
At the end of the 19th century in the Russian Empire, restaurants and culinary establishments for the elite could order a wide variety of products, which made it possible to make truly exquisite and original dishes. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that the classic Olivier salad recipe includes ingredients that are completely uncharacteristic of our modern dish.
So, Lucien Olivier used grouse fillets and boiled veal tongue, boiled crayfish, black caviar, boiled eggs, fresh and pickled cucumbers in his salad. In addition, there were other ingredients in the salad: lettuce, soy paste, capers. All this was dressed with a special sauce with olive oil, egg yolks, vinegar and mustard. Olivier's signature spices were also added to the sauce, so today we can only guess about the true taste of this sauce. As we can see, this recipe for Olivier salad, compiled in 1904, is completely different from how Olivier is currently prepared.
From "Olivier" to salad "Capital"
With the outbreak of the First World War, and then the revolutionary events in Russia, French chefs left the country. Connoisseurs of their culinary talent were also irretrievably lost. The famous restaurant Olivier in Moscow closed. In turbulent times, many exquisite ingredients disappeared from the tables, or they simply became irrelevant due to their high cost.
Capital salad with ham As a result, in Soviet times, the salad "Olivier" has changed somewhat. Instead of exquisite hazel grouse and boiled crayfish, the salad included more affordable, relatively inexpensive products. In the 1920s, a salad appeared in the Moscow restaurant, which became known as Stolichny. Its composition already seems more familiar to us in comparison with the modern Olivier. These are potatoes, onions, carrots, peppers, boiled poultry meat, pickled cucumbers, boiled eggs, apple, olive mayonnaise.
Salad "Capital" was widely used in Soviet Russia, pushing into the background until then the main dish of the festive table - vinaigrette. Already in the 60s and 70s, having changed somewhat, Stolichny moved from a restaurant kitchen to a communal one, thus settling on the table of almost every Soviet citizen. Before that, the salad, of course, was also well known, but still it was popular mainly with the Soviet intelligentsia and party workers.
Throughout its history, Olivier has been constantly changing - some components were replaced by others, from an expensive, meat dish, it gradually turned into a wonderful vegetable salad, accessible to everyone. And today there are many variations of this legendary salad. Almost every housewife prepares it the way it is done in a particular family. Nothing prevents people from experimenting by adding some new ingredients to the Olivier salad or replacing them with others.
culture
Have you ever wondered why so many people love Olivier salad so much? And why exactly this dish is so popular in the territory of the former USSR, being associated with New Year's festivities?
And after all, even those who cannot stand Olivier are well aware of the peculiar sacred meaning this salad is for almost everyone who loves the New Year holiday (that is, for the majority).
The special status of Olivier salad, as a dish for the holiday, is perceived by us as such from early childhood. And it seems like it's always been that way. In fact, the popularity of Olivier in our country is a vivid example of a kind of random product placement.
Where did this dish come from? A lot has been written about its origin, but too much artistic look most of the stories, causing a lot of questions.
So how did the “bourgeois” salad penetrate the life of almost every citizen of the former USSR? Why exactly Olivier salad became the most favorite New Year's dish for many millions? Let's talk about everything in order.
The history of the birth of Olivier salad usually begins with the history of the birth of a person, a great hereditary chef. And this man was a Lucien Olivier. It is believed that Lucien was born in Moscow somewhere at the turn of 1837-1838 (nothing is known about the more exact date of the birth of the future "father of Olivier salad").
Sources that mention the name of Lucien Olivier usually immediately throw us into the mid-60s century before last when wealthy Muscovites and guests of the city favored a restaurant called the Hermitage with their attention.
It was in this restaurant that visitors tried for the first time the prototype of the Olivier salad, named after supposedly hereditary chef(and part-time manager) of this institution Lucien Olivier. But this is where the first questions arise.
There is no evidence that Lucien Olivier was a hereditary chef
You may be surprised, but there are no reliable sources that would confirm that restaurant manager Lucien was a great cook (and even hereditary, as you can read in some "historical" research), does not exist.
What do you know about Lucien? It is believed that the man was French or Belgian of French origin. However, here we are faced with the same problem: no matter how hard you try, you will not find a reliable source of this information (and many enthusiasts and historians have been purposefully doing this).
And what do the Moscow archives say about people with the surname Olivier, who then lived in this city? It is well known that in the address book of 1842 year there is a mention of only one Olivier, who then lived in Moscow. Perhaps in his family a “great cook” was born?
It is unlikely. The likelihood that it was in the family of this Olivier, a merchant and owner of a hairdresser named Osip, then grew four year old Lucien, the future creator of the super-popular salad, is practically zero: although Osip had four children and three of them were boys, none of the guys fit either by age or by name.
Was there even a man named Lucien Olivier?
For most of the fragmentary information that we have about Lucien Olivier, as about the manager of the Hermitage restaurant, we are indebted to such a person as the writer Count Vladimir Gilyarovsky. And it would be possible to refer to his information, if not for one "but": Gilyarovsky was called at one time nothing more than a collector of urban legends. Legends and Rumors.
And, nevertheless: according to the same archival sources (namely, they are the most reliable), the Hermitage restaurant, which opened in luxury hotel "Hermitage" on Trubnaya Square in Moscow, like the hotel itself, were managed by a certain ... Nikolai Olivier. Another Olivier? Where did he come from?!
For the first time, Nicholas Olivier is mentioned in 1868 in a sort of Moscow guide to hospitals, trading shops, various enterprises, educational institutions, usury offices, as well as hotels and restaurants.
Who was the first to talk about Lucien Olivier as a cook?
The writer Gilyarovsky, in his descriptions of the life and traditions of Muscovites of those years, described the Hermitage establishment as very popular and elite place. And it was he, Vladimir Alekseevich Gilyarovsky, who painted the talents of the chef Olivier, who allegedly prepared an exceptionally delicious salad that made Lucien popular throughout Moscow.
Gilyarovsky personally, of course, could not see this, since he was born only in 1855; his book "Moscow and Muscovites" was published in 1926. And now the most interesting: any other sources of information, which we would have learned about Lucien Olivier, as a talented hereditary chef, are simply absent.
However, the manager of the "Hermitage" by the name of Lucien existed, being, quite obviously, Nikolai, who changed his name to a more French one. What for? Perhaps to match "Frenchness" of the restaurant itself. One can only guess about the motives of Nicholas (Lucien), since the man died in 1883, leaving almost no data behind him.
Could the manager of the hotel and restaurant personally undertake the preparation of dishes in the restaurant of the hotel he manages? Hypothetically, this possibility is not ruled out, but no evidence we do not have this fact, except for the existence of a beautiful legend about the hereditary chef Lucien Olivier (and many conjectures based on this legend). But we have Olivier salad.
real olivier recipe
First Olivier salad
The question immediately arises: perhaps there was no Olivier salad then? There was, although the story of Olivier, like a salad, no less confusing than the story of Lucien Olivier as a cook. There were many delicious dishes that the sophisticated Moscow noble audience actually tasted for the first time in the Hermitage restaurant in the hotel of the same name.
By the way, another Russian writer, Pyotr Dmitrievich Boborykin, who lived just in that era and visited the Hermitage restaurant, sincerely admired the incredible huge kitchen this institution in their articles published in the popular monthly. There was also mentioned a French manager, allegedly born in Russia.
At the same time, as Bobrykin assured, insisting on this information, in the kitchen of the Hermitage restaurant, which hosted all the nobility not only of Russia, but of all Europe, about six dozen chefs. Was there any point in the hotel manager getting behind the stove?
However, let's get back to the salad, or rather, to its prototype!
The restaurant "Hermitage" served a very tasty and varied dish (perhaps really a salad), which later became known as named after manager restaurant. Perhaps it was called that right away, in the restaurant's menu, although there is no indication of this.
What did the first recipe for this dish look like, did it even look like a salad - unknown! Everything else that can be found about Olivier salad with reference to the Hermitage restaurant is tales, legends and conjectures.
One such legend says that the chef of the restaurant (according to the same legend, the chef was Lucien Olivier) served his new culinary masterpiece, which was not a salad at all. Rather, it was like ensemble of various products, generously poured with Provence sauce. The dish allegedly included crayfish necks, partridges, hazel grouse, lanspieg, veal tongue and much more, including separately presented potatoes and eggs.
Some of these products are actually used as ingredients for the modern Olivier salad. But, as the legend says, visitors to the Hermitage did not appreciate the refined taste of the artist and maestro Olivier, mixing all the ingredients together. And the next day, the cook, upset by the ignorance of the public, served the same dish, but in a mixed form. Like, this is how Olivier salad appeared.
I would like to believe in this memorable legend, but there is one caveat (at least): the dish itself was allegedly called "Mayonnaise from the game." However cookbooks the middle of the century before last they present us under this name a lot of dishes from pork, beef, hare, and other living creatures. It seems that mayonnaise became the sauce later.
Where did the original Olivier recipe go?
After the death of Olivier, the Hermitage restaurant was repeatedly repaired, completed, rebuilt, and then finally closed in 1917. Have any recipes been lost? It is obvious. Was there a recipe for that famous Olivier salad among them? As you understand, there are no direct instructions for this. But the story did not end there, but only began.
Starting from 1884, recipes began to appear in various culinary and near-culinary publications of the country, which are allegedly a reference to "the same" famous recipe Olivier salad, popular among the nobility of Moscow and guests of the city. The recipes changed from edition to edition and from publication to publication.
The authors of each subsequent recipe could make changes to the "original" recipe, replacing, for example, hazel grouse with chicken, recommending Provence sauce. By the way, standards for mayonnaise, as for the sauce familiar to us, called "Provencal", were already developed in the Soviet Union. By the way, there were no preservatives in it, except for vinegar from alcohol.
Needless to say, among the writers of culinary recipes, as well as among publishers and editors, there were many not the most talented people who counted, first of all, on to earn money? Not much trying to look for any historical truth, some even invented the ingredients of the “first Olivier” (adding, for example, black caviar).
Salad for the New Year's table
Soviet Olivier
The glory of Olivier salad as "a unique dish with incredible taste and nutritional qualities, the recipe of which has been irretrievably lost" is simply couldn't fly. And she didn't fade. In the famous restaurants of the Soviet Union, many chefs tried to speculate (in a good way) on the long-standing glory of Olivier salad.
Speculation can be called purely conditional, as the chefs of the establishments sincerely tried to cook something close to original(at least close to what was published in the old pre-revolutionary culinary publications).
Ideologically correct Olivier
It is known, for example, that in the mid-30s of the last century, in some restaurants of the capital, salad a la Olivier was no longer served with expensive ingredients, echoes of the bourgeois past (take at least the same hazel grouse!), but with an ideologically verified red carrot. And it was called "Capital".
Perhaps the story about the "ideologically verified" carrot is also a legend, and the chefs were simply forced to try new ingredients, including the same green peas instead of capers. And the sausage that appeared in the dish was the result of attempts to reduce the cost of the final product.
I must say that by that time the Olivier salad was known under several names: “Russian salad”, “Winter”. Again, Capital. There is no clear justification for this. You can find fabrications on the topic that “Russian” differs from “Olivier” in that one uses meat, and the other uses sausage.
However, the logic in this, given the previous story, is not observed. Most likely, in the Soviet catering system they tried to get away from the not quite popular name “Olivier”, trying not only new ingredients, but also new titles. As we can see, one, and the second, and the third took root. There are even names like "Game Salad".
How did doctor's sausage appear in Olivier?
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet people actively restored the destroyed country. But even among the harsh everyday life, sometimes I wanted to arrange a holiday for myself - with festive meals and drinks. Olivier suddenly became an attribute of the festival. But, since chicken fillet was expensive, cheaper doctor's sausage began to be used everywhere.
In addition, this boiled sausage, developed back in 1936 as an element of dietary nutrition recommended for those who undermined his health as a result of the Civil and First World Wars, it was recommended to citizens even after the end of the Great Patriotic War.
Salad "Olivier", which has become very famous in our country, was invented by a chef from France in the sixties of the XIX century, this man's name was Lucien Olivier. Besides the fact that Lucien was a culinary specialist, he also owned the Hermitage tavern, which was located at that time on Trubnaya Square in Moscow.
The tavern in its level was quite consistent with a real Parisian restaurant. His signature dish was Olivier salad. In the strictest confidence, Lucien Olivier kept the recipe for this dish. Since the death of the chef, the history of the Olivier salad began to acquire secrets and it was believed that the secret of the famous real Olivier salad was lost. There were many attempts to solve it, but nothing worked.
In 1904, culinary specialists managed, knowing the main ingredients, to restore the recipe for a real Olivier salad. Thus, in order to prepare this original salad, it was necessary to have the following products on hand: pressed caviar - ¼ pound, two hazel grouses, veal tongue, boiled crayfish - 25 pieces, soy kabul - ½ can, two fresh cucumbers, half a pound of fresh lettuce, half a can pickles, capers - ¼ pound and five hard-boiled eggs. To prepare the sauce, French vinegar, two eggs and Provencal oil (olive) - 1 pound (the same Provencal mayonnaise) were required.
But, nevertheless, gourmets who tried the original salad prepared by Lucien Olivier claimed that it was much different from the salad made according to the restored recipe. This, one might say, ended the history of the Olivier salad, as contemporaries knew it. To all of us, the well-known Olivier salad with boiled sausage has nothing to do with the creation of a French chef.
The recipe for the modern Olivier was invented during the Soviet Union. Then with crayfish, hazel grouse and other delicacies it was very tight. So they were replaced with boiled sausage, green peas and other available ingredients. Thus began the history of the new Olivier salad, which is still prepared in almost every family in Russia.
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