For the New Year holidays, we always prepare our favorite Olivier, it has long become a classic, without which we cannot imagine the New Year. But not everyone knows that the Olivier salad (the real French recipe of which we will consider) was not originally a salad and had a very unusual composition of ingredients. How the creator himself prepared the dish is unknown, the chef did not reveal this secret to anyone, but the recipe, which was told to the world by one of the visitors to his restaurant.

The original of the dish is very far from the usual cooking option for us. Few people know that originally Olivier was not sliced. All of its ingredients were served whole, beautifully laid out on a plate.

The idea to cut the food did not come to the creator of the dish right away. Only after he began to notice that the visitors of his restaurant were cutting whole meat pieces and mixing them together, eating with appetite exactly in this form, the idea ripened - to serve the dish in the form of a salad.

You can find in more detail the history of the origin of the salad and the changing recipe of Olivier in different years in our article.

As you can see, it is not so difficult to prepare your favorite salad "Olivier". However, the real French recipe for its preparation is really impressive, it is not surprising that the dish was considered a signature dish on the menu of the chef himself.

If you also want to make your salad the "king of the feast", thereby surprising your family with an extraordinary delicacy, then you should spend time and money on cooking. Happy cooking and delicious meal.

Bon Appetit!

The classic Olivier salad with meat is another symbol of the New Year, which we are used to seeing on the festive table. But few people know that the author of this dish is the French chef Lucien Olivier, who opened the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow in the middle of the 19th century. His signature Olivier appetizer made from partridge and hazel grouse meat, with calf tongue, crayfish tails and a layer of broth jelly was collected in the restaurant of gourmets from all over the capital. The meat basket was filled with boiled potatoes, eggs, gherkins, capers, olives and filled with delicious mayonnaise made according to a unique author's recipe. Many have tried to find out the real French recipe for the classic Olivier salad, but Lucien kept his tricks a secret. Over time, Russian chefs adapted the overseas appetizer to our reality, and in Soviet times, a recipe for Olivier with boiled sausage appeared, which instantly took root and became popular. It is interesting that modern Olivier has lost its French roots and is known abroad as "Russian salad".

How to cook classic Olivier salad

In the past, Olivier salad was associated with prosperity, so the hostesses always prepared this appetizer for the New Year's table. The step-by-step recipe for a classic Olivier looks very simple. First, boil potatoes in a peel and boil hard-boiled eggs, and when the food is cool, peel and cut into cubes. Pickled cucumbers with cut tails are cut into cubes, boiled meat (beef, chicken, turkey) is chopped, liquid is drained from a jar of peas, onions are finely chopped. All ingredients are mixed in a salad bowl and seasoned with mayonnaise. Despite the fact that the classic Olivier is cooked with meat, as it was in the original recipe of the French chef, the doctor's sausage can also be considered a version of the classic.

The number of products is calculated based on the number of eaters and taste preferences. Some people like more meat, others do not lay eggs, and some add twice as much potatoes. The classic Olivier salad contains 400 g of meat or sausage, 5 medium-sized potatoes, 5 eggs, 4 pickles, a can of green peas, 2 medium onions and 200 ml of mayonnaise. The classic calculation of potatoes and eggs is simple - there should be exactly as many of them as there are guests at the table. You can also put boiled carrots, dill and green onions in the salad.

A new look at traditional Olivier

It is interesting that the well-known salads "Winter", "Meat" and "Stolichny" are variations. However, the classic Olivier can be turned into a real delicacy if you replace the meat with shrimp or fish, such as salmon. This is perfectly acceptable, besides, Lucien Olivier also used seafood. Some recipes for Olivier contain apples, oranges, pomegranates, pickled or fried mushrooms, avocado, arugula, lettuce, any delicious smoked fish, red caviar, beets and even raw cabbage, which is added to Olivier in some regions of Ukraine. Italians prepare "Russian salad" with green beans, Germans - with smoked sausage, Americans - with tuna and canned corn, Spaniards - with crab sticks and asparagus. In Bulgaria, ham or salami is added to Olivier, in Iran, meat salad is used as a filling for sandwiches, and Greeks, Serbs and Poles generally prepare this appetizer without meat.

A few secrets of making Olivier

It is difficult to cut the meat nicely, but to make the salad look more aesthetically pleasing, first cut the meat along the grain and only then chop it across. Do not overcook the potatoes, otherwise you will get mashed potatoes instead of cubes. It won't spoil the taste of the salad, of course, but the aesthetics will suffer. By the way, potatoes and carrots should be more than other components of the salad. Village eggs with bright yolks and halves of quail eggs look very beautiful in Olivier.

Try not to take large pickles, otherwise there will be seeds in the salad, and it is better to remove the skin from tough cucumbers so that the Olivier turns out to be tender and pleasant to the taste. Put the sliced ​​cucumbers in a colander or sieve so that the glass has excess moisture. Pickled cucumbers or fresh cucumbers, which are often mixed together, can be used instead of pickles. Pickled squash also gives a piquant salty taste to the appetizer. In general, experiment!

If using fresh onions, pour boiling water over them after chopping to remove the bitterness, otherwise the salad will taste harsh. You can make mayonnaise yourself, adding spices for the aroma - it is not only tasty, but also healthy. If you're on a diet, replace sausage with veal or chicken breast and mayonnaise with low-fat sour cream or yogurt.

For non-standard, cut the ingredients not into cubes, but into strips - it will be very unusual. And most importantly, the salad should be seasoned with mayonnaise just before serving, otherwise it will lose its freshness. You can put some horseradish and mustard in the dressing. Olivier is decorated with herbs, green peas, curly slices of meat and vegetables, beautifully cut eggs.

Recipe: not quite classic Olivier with meat

Cut into thin slices 300 g of boiled veal tongue, mix with 3 boiled potatoes and 3 boiled eggs, cut into cubes. Add thin half rings of 2 onions, finely chopped red bell pepper, any greens and mix with the sauce.

Prepare the sauce like this: beat 2 eggs with 2 tsp. salt without a slide, add 2 tbsp. l. milk and beat again. Next, pour in 2 tbsp. l. vegetable oil and 1 tsp. sugar, stir well and season the salad.

Olivier is made with simple, affordable and inexpensive ingredients. Therefore, you can safely serve Olivier on the New Year's table, and to make the salad seem more festive, diversify it with interesting ingredients. Your family and guests will appreciate this tasty, appetizing and beautiful dish, because Olivier never gets bored!

With the New Year approaching, here and there on the Web there are traditional holivars about “our whole” festive table - Olivier salad. People once again find out who cooks it how, which ingredients are the most correct, and rediscover “the very” recipe taken to the grave by Lucien Olivier himself. I offer a selection of recipes by which you can trace the history of the development of this salad from the first mention to the present day.

Part one: pre-revolutionary

For the first time, the Olivier salad recipe appeared in the fifth issue of the magazine "Our Food" in 1894 (at least, earlier sources have not yet been found to date). The recipe can be considered quite reliable, since, according to the author, he "enjoyed this snack more than once" during the All-Russian exhibition in 1882, that is, even during the life of Olivier himself. The editor-publisher of the magazine was M. A. Ignatiev. Later, the same recipe appears in the book of one of the authors of the magazine and Ignatiev's future wife, Pelageya Pavlovna Alexandrova.

Olivier salad

Essential products and their proportion per person.

Grouse - ½ pieces. Potatoes - 2 pieces. Cucumbers - 1 piece. Salad - 3-4 leaves. Provencal - 1½ table. spoons. Cancer necks - 3 pieces. Lanspeak - ¼ glass. Kaportsa - 1 teaspoon. Olives - 3-5 pieces.

Cooking rules:

Cut the fillets of fried good hazel grouse into blankets and mix with blankets of boiled, not sprinkled potatoes and slices of fresh cucumbers, add kaports and olives and pour a lot of Provencal sauce with soy-kabul. After cooling, transfer to a crystal vase, remove with crayfish necks, lettuce leaves and chopped lanspik. Serve very cold. Fresh cucumbers can be replaced with large gherkins. Instead of hazel grouse, you can take veal, partridge and chicken, but a real Olivier snack is made from hazel grouses.

PP Aleksandrova "Guide to the study of the foundations of culinary art", Odessa, 1897.

It is easy to see that the recipe is quite simple, and the set of ingredients is relatively democratic. However, already at the beginning of the twentieth century, perhaps the most famous recipe for Olivier salad appeared. The one about which legends were made in Soviet times and which, in my opinion, however, is completely unfounded, is still considered canonical. By the way, here, for the first time, there was a hint of the variability of ingredients - in addition to the "usual" salad with hazel grouse, fish olivier was also described. At the same time, it should be noted that if in the first case "Olivier" is written with a capital letter, then in the second already with a small letter. Is it coincidental?

769. Olivier Salad

Issue: 2 hazel grouse 1 veal tongue, ¼ lb. pressed caviar, ½ lb. fresh salad, 25 boiled crayfish or 1 can of lobster, ½ can of pickles, ½ can of kabul soybeans, 2 ¼ lb fresh cucumbers. capers, 5 steep eggs; put everything on a dish and everything that is required for Provencal sauce # 499, which should be cooked in French vinegar from 2 eggs and 1 lb. Provencal oil, and salted to taste.

931. Fish salad Olivier

Issue: 1 lb. fresh sturgeon (instead of hazel grouse and tongue) and everything else as stated in No. 769.

KK Morokhovtsev "A complete gift for young housewives", Moscow, 1904/1905.

There is an explanation for the "luxury" that appeared in the 1904 recipe. Lucien Olivier himself had already died by that time, and his restaurant passed into the possession of a commercial partnership. Here is what V. A. Gilyarovsky writes: “The first thing they did was rebuild the Hermitage even more luxuriously, decorated chic numbered baths in the same building and built a new house for the dates ... The Hermitage began to give huge profits - drunkenness and revelry went in full swing ... Moscow "eminent" merchants and the richer ones went straight to the offices, where they immediately unbelted ... Grain caviar was served in silver buckets, arshin sterlets in the ear were brought directly to the offices, where they were slaughtered. " Naturally, the new owners and chefs made not only the interior, but also the menu more luxurious to please new visitors.

It is interesting that even in the book of Alexandrova-Ignatieva, by that time the salad had become more intricate: it began to be laid out in layers, truffles appeared, etc.

Olivier salad

Essential products and their proportion for 5 persons.

Grouse - 3 pcs. Potatoes - 5 pcs. Ogurtsov - 5 pcs. Salad - 2 cats. Provencal - 1/2 bottle. oils. Cancer necks - 15 pcs. Lanspeek - 1 glass. Olives, gherkins - only 50 gr. Truffles - 3 pcs.

Cooking rules. Singe, gut, season and fry the natural banquet shot grouse, cool and remove all the pulp from the bones. Cut the fillets into blankets, and chop the rest of the pulp a little. Boil a good broth from the bones of the game, from which then prepare the lanspeak. Boil the potatoes in the skins, then peel and remove them into a groove, the size of a 3-kopeck coin, and chop the trimmings. Peel fresh cucumbers and cut into thin slices. Cut the truffles into circles. Boil crayfish and take necks from them. Prepare a thick Provencal sauce, add kabul soy for the pungency, and a little heavy cream for the best 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 on the bottom the trimmings of game and potatoes, lightly seasoning them with Provencal, then put a number of game on top, then part of the potatoes, cucumbers, part of truffles, olives and crayfish necks, pour all this with a part of the sauce so that it is juicy, put a row of game on top again and etc. Some of the crayfish necks and truffles should be left for decoration on top. When all the products are stacked in a vase in the form of a slide, then cover with Provencal on top so that the products are not visible. Put some salad in the middle of the vase with a bouquet, and place crayfish necks, boiled crayfish claws and truffles around it more beautifully. Chop the frozen lanspeak, put it in a cornet, make a thin elegant mesh on top and chill everything well.

Note. In the same way, you can prepare a salad from the remaining roast: beef, veal, 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 snack is always prepared from hazel grouse.

PP Aleksandrova-Ignatieva "Practical foundations of culinary art", St. Petersburg, 1909.

Until the revolution itself, the salad recipe has repeatedly, albeit rarely, appeared on the pages of cookbooks and culinary magazines. Moreover, in different variations - simple and not very, but if with lobsters and truffles, then more and more often with notes that "you can do without them."

Part two: Soviet

For some time after 1917, pre-revolutionary culinary books were still printed in Russia. For example, in 1927, another edition of the cookery textbook by M.M. Zarina was published, which first appeared in 1910. On the title page it is specially noted: "The fifth edition, revised and supplemented, the first edition of the GIZA (State Publishing House)." There are two recipes in the textbook, the classic one with game and the fish one.

Olivier salad

Provisions

Grouse 1 pc. Fresh cucumbers 2 pcs. Potatoes 2 pcs. 1/2 yolks Romaine lettuce 1 head of cabbage. Mustard made 1 tsp. l. Lemon 1/2 pc. Provence. oil 1/4 lb. (100 g). Sugar 1/2 teaspoon l. Soy-kabul 1 tea l. 1/4 teaspoon salt l.

Fried fillets from hazel grouse need to be cut into thin slices, in the same way, cut two boiled potatoes and a cucumber; from the romaine lettuce, you need to take only one white leaves and also cut them into small pieces. After that, make Provencal (see lunch No. 10 of French cuisine), add one teaspoon of soy-kabul to it, pour the salad prepared in this way with Provencal, put it either in a vase or in a small bowl with a slide, remove with herbs, and if there is a lanspeak, then to them, and serve with a snack. This salad can be made not only from hazel grouse, but from any other game, as well as from poultry and even from fried veal and even beef left over from dinner. You can put a side dish in it, whatever happens at a given moment, for example, pickled porcini mushrooms, gherkins, kaportsy, hard eggs and all kinds of boiled greens. For a vegetarian table, everything is done as above, but no meat is put in.

Fish salad

Provisions

Boiled fish 1 lb. (400 g). Crayfish 10 pcs. In addition, for this salad, they take everything that was taken for the Olivier salad, except for meat.

This salad is prepared in the same way as the Olivier salad, the difference is that instead of game they take fish, and soy-kabul is not added to Provence, but it is decorated with greens and crayfish tails or lobster.

M. M. Zarina "Cookery", Moscow-Leningrad, 1927.

In the same 1927, Aleksandrova-Ignatieva, after a ten-year break, prints the 12th edition of "Practical Foundations of Culinary Art" with her own money. True, the volume of the book had to be cut by two-thirds: "taking into account all modern conditions." However, despite "major changes in the economy and everyday life of the country," the salad recipe has been preserved in the book. With truffles and banquet shot hazel grouses. True, he began to be called: Game Salad (Olivier).

Now is the time to move on to books written directly under the Soviet regime. In 1934, the "Handbook of Cooking" was published under the editorship of Professor BV Vilenkin.

“The successes of socialist construction, the completion of collectivization and the powerful technical armament of agriculture have created significant food resources and all the conditions for the further development of public catering and improving the quality of such ... Such a scale of public catering required the involvement of tens and hundreds of thousands of young personnel in the organization of public catering. At the same time, public catering is the poorest both in literature and in technical manuals for these personnel ... The published "Handbook of Cookery" is the first book on the introduction of technical knowledge in production according to Comrade Mikoyan's instructions. The Institute of Nutrition and the best cooks of Soyuznarpit were involved in the development of this handbook by Soyuznarpit. "

It would seem, where does the bourgeois Olivier salad come from in such a reference book? And here you go. The best cooks of Soyuznarpit, after all.

Game salad (olivier)

Made from game and vegetables in Provencal sauce. Dispensed as a separate dish.

The norm of products for 1 serving

Game fillet (ready-made) 40 g. Boiled potatoes 60 g. Steep egg (1 pc.) 50 g. Provencal sauce 50 g. Soya-kabul 15 g. Gherkins 25 g. Lettuce or romaine 25 g. Salt 1 g. Pickle vinegar or tarragon 5 g.

Prepared food is cut into thin slices and mixed with Provencal sauce before leaving. For taste, add soy-kabul, salt and vinegar; everything is mixed, folded into a salad bowl and decorated with crayfish tails, lettuce branches, pickles, fresh cucumbers, etc.

Note. Instead of game fillets, you can take beef or veal. Before decorating, the salad on top can be poured from a spoon or an envelope with Provencal sauce. Gherkins can be replaced with pickles.

Ed. BV Vilenkin "Guide to Cooking", Moscow-Leningrad, 1934.

Here it is, a turning point and a change of scenery - the freedom in choosing a "side dish" in Zarina's textbook is fixed by the firm proletarian "and so on." when decorating in the Cooking Guide. Here you can have both peas and carrots - at the discretion of "hundreds of thousands of young personnel." And there it is not far from the sausage. And with the name, everything becomes clear: “As far as possible, in this guide, foreign names have been replaced by Russians, briefly characterizing these dishes; rooted foreign names are given in brackets ”.

Game salad

Cut the hazel grouse fillet, potatoes, gherkins, half a hard-boiled egg into thin slices, and 3-4 pieces of dried lettuce leaves. Fold in a bowl, season with salt and mayonnaise, add soy-kabul, vinegar or lemon juice. Put the dressed salad in a slide in a salad bowl. Place lettuce leaves in the center of the slide, and around, along the oval, decorate with eggs, cut into quarters, slices of fresh cucumber and slices of pickles. You can decorate the salad with crayfish tails, pieces of crab, as well as slices of tomatoes. Such a salad can be prepared from various game or poultry, from meat, veal, etc.

For one hazel grouse (boiled or fried) - 300 g of boiled potatoes, 75 g of gherkins or pickles, 75 g of green salad, 2 eggs, ½ cup of mayonnaise sauce, ½ tbsp. soy-kabul spoons, 1 tbsp. tablespoons of vinegar, ¼ teaspoon of powdered sugar, salt to taste.

Goodbye Olivier, you were taken out of the brackets. From now on, this word will disappear from culinary literature for a long time. Meanwhile, hazel grouses and kabul soybeans are still holding on and not surrendering their positions.

CoViZP could not do without a fish version of the salad, however, for some reason, with the obligatory addition of a tomato. On the other hand, pressed caviar returned as a decoration - "life has become better, life has become more fun."

Fish salad with tomatoes
(from sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, beluga, pike perch, salmon)

Cut the boiled cold fish into small pieces; cut the peeled potatoes, cucumbers, gherkins and tomatoes into slices, put everything in a bowl, add the chopped green salad. Before serving, lightly salt the food and mix with mayonnaise and vinegar sauce. Then put in a slide in a salad bowl, placing beautiful green lettuce leaves in the center of the slide, and around, along an oval, lay circles of tomatoes and cucumbers. You can decorate the salad with caviar - pressed, granular or chum salmon, slices of salmon, salmon, chum salmon, sturgeon and pitted olives. Onions or green onions (50-60 g) can be added to the salad.

For 200 g of fish - 1 tomato, 1 fresh cucumber, 300 g of boiled potatoes, 75 g of green salad, 75 g of gherkins, 1/2 cup of mayonnaise sauce, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of vinegar.

"A book about tasty and healthy food", Moscow, 1939.

In the fifties, the Olivier salad changes its name again. In 1951, L. A. Maslov's textbook "Cookery" was published, recommended by the Directorate of Leading Personnel of the USSR Ministry of Trade as a textbook for culinary apprenticeship schools. Apparently, in order not to injure schoolchildren, the salad in this textbook is called "Capital". I quote from a 1957 book - although this is the third edition, it is still stereotypical.

Capital salad

Boiled or fried poultry or game is cooled and the flesh is cut into slices. Boiled potatoes, gherkins or pickles are cut into thin slices, green salad is cut into large pieces. meat and vegetables are seasoned with mayonnaise sauce with the addition of Yuzhny sauce, mixed well and put in a salad bowl on lettuce leaves with a slide, and then decorated with pieces of game or poultry, slices of hard eggs, crayfish tails or crabs, fresh or pickled cucumbers and sprigs of parsley ... For dressing Stolichny salad, you can use mayonnaise with sour cream or mayonnaise with white sauce.

Products per serving (in g): hazel grouse or gray partridge 1/2 pc., Or black grouse 1/6 pc., Or chicken 187, or turkey 195, potatoes 41, cucumbers 38, salad 14, eggs 1/2 pc., crayfish tails or crabs 5, ready-made mayonnaise sauce 50, Yuzhny sauce 10.

L. A. Maslov "Cookery", Moscow, 1957.

Soybean-kabul is being replaced by the “Yuzhny” sauce. But the most interesting thing awaits us in the fish version ("Salad from sturgeon or beluga, or pike perch, or cod") - carrots and canned green peas appear in it, and even, as an option, "cauliflower" - it is still recommended with chum salmon or grained caviar.

Here, a salad called "meat" appears, which differs from the "capital" only in meat (beef, veal or lean pork) and a decrease in its amount in relation to other ingredients.

In 1955, a fundamental work of more than 1000 pages was published - "Cookery", where the name "Stolichny" was finally fixed, and for the fish version too.

182. Poultry Salad ("Capital")

Boiled or fried poultry or game, boiled peeled potatoes, fresh, pickled or pickled cucumbers, boiled eggs, cut into thin slices (2-2.5 cm), and finely chop the green salad leaves. Mix all this, season with mayonnaise sauce, add Southern sauce for taste. After mixing, put the salad in a slide in a salad bowl and decorate with circles or slices of a hard egg, slices of pickles, lettuce leaves, and circles of fresh cucumbers. On the salad, you can put nicely cut game fillet slices, crayfish tails, or canned crab and olives.

Poultry or game (cooked) 60, potatoes 60, fresh, pickled or pickled cucumbers 40, green salad 10, crayfish necks 10, eggs 45, Yuzhny sauce 15, mayonnaise 70, pickles 10, olives 10.

175. Salad from sturgeon, starred sturgeon or beluga ("Capital")

Boiled sturgeon or other fish and potatoes, canned cucumbers (gherkins) and boiled eggs, cut into slices of 2-2.5 cm, and the green salad - into pieces. Season with mayonnaise, add Southern sauce and salt for taste. Put all this in a salad bowl with a slide, decorate with lettuce leaves, salmon or salmon cut in the shape of a diamond, strips of pressed caviar, circles of boiled eggs, crabs or crayfish tails and pitted olives.

Boiled fish 50, potatoes 35, canned cucumbers (gherkins) 25, green salad 10, mayonnaise 40, Yuzhny sauce 10, eggs 20, pressed caviar 6, salmon or salmon 8, crayfish tails or crabs 5, olives 10.

"Cookery", Moscow, 1955.

Not without "Meat Salad", in preparation and serving exactly the same as "Stolichny", with the appropriate replacement of poultry with boiled, stewed or fried meat (beef, veal, lean lamb, pork or rabbit).

In fact, this is the classic Soviet Olivier salad. Rather, its three incarnations. Doesn't it look like anything? The recipe is quite simple, and the set of ingredients is relatively democratic. With minor changes, everything returned to normal - to the original pre-revolutionary version.

The same recipes, together or separately, written in different words, but retaining the essence of the preparation and a set of products, begin to wander around in various culinary textbooks and recipe collections. Around the 70s, canned green peas settled in salads forever, sturgeons disappeared, they were replaced by sea bass, cod or catfish, and salad with poultry fell out of favor - it began to appear less and less often.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the imagination of citizens broke out and went all out - Olivier was called almost any mayonnaise salad. The logical result can be considered the release of junk brochures, such as “New Year's Olivier for every taste. 100 Proven Recipes ”, which filled mainly newsstands. Olivier salad initially assumed some variability in the ingredients used, but not to the same extent.

And although, in every Russian family, Olivier salad is prepared in different ways, with some secret ingredient - just as grandmother did, let's not forget about the origins. And on New Year's Eve, before falling face down in a bowl of salad, let us remember with the kind word of the Russian chef of French origin, Lucien Olivier, who presented us with a dish, without which the New Year's table is perceived to be practically orphaned.

* Start topic here:

Traditions section publications

Cultural Code: Legendary Olivier

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

Lucien Olivier, chef 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 I got it. The appetizer he invented in the 1860s for the jaded guests of an expensive restaurant quickly fell in love with the Moscow public. Then the Russian national cuisine - nourishing, abundant, but rather simple - was gradually changing under the pressure of an insistent fashion for everything French.

Olivier guessed the moment: his signature snack with a special Provencal 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 the dinners were prepared by the Frenchman Olivier, who even then became famous for the salad Olivier invented by him, without which lunch is not for lunch and the secret of which he did not reveal. No matter how hard the gourmets tried, it didn’t come out: this, but not that ”.

Culinary historians generally agree that it was the sauce: Chef Lucien, himself from Provence, was well versed in the local oil and only used a certain variety. However, this secret was quickly revealed, and within several years the salad entered the menu of all any respectable catering establishments.

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

Vladimir Gilyarovsky. "Moscow and Muscovites"

In the next decade, salad became so popular that its recipes began to be featured in cookbooks for a wealthy audience. These are not books for young inept housewives and not "the secret secrets of a cheap dinner." Olivier requires skillful hands - and money.

Culinary Guide, 1897

Olivier salad

Essential products and their proportion for 5 persons.

Grouse - 3 pcs., Potatoes - 5 pcs., Cucumbers - 5 pcs., Lettuce - 2 cocks, provence - ½ bottle. butter, crayfish necks - 15 pcs., lanspiku - 1 cup, olives, gherkins - only ¼ lb., truffles - 3 pcs. Cooking rules: Singe, gut, season and fry the banquet fire hazel grouse naturally, cool and remove all the pulp from the bones. Cut the fillets into blankets, and chop the rest of the pulp a little. Boil a good broth from the bones of the game, from which then prepare the lanspeak. Boil the potatoes in the skins, then peel them and take them out into a groove the size of a three-kopeck coin, and chop the trimmings. Peel fresh cucumbers and cut into thin slices. Cut the truffles into circles. Boil crayfish and take necks from them. Prepare a thick Provencal sauce, add kabul-son to it for pungency, and a little heavy cream for a 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 on the bottom the cuttings of game and potatoes, slightly seasoning them with Provencal, then put a number of game on top, then part of the potatoes, cucumbers, part of truffles, olives and crayfish necks, pour all this with a part of the sauce so that it is juicy, put on top again a number of game and etc. Leave some of the crayfish necks and truffles on top for decoration. When all the products are stacked in a vase in the form of a slide, then cover with Provencal on top so that the products are not visible. Put some salad in the middle of the vase with a bouquet, and place crayfish necks, boiled crayfish claws and truffles around it more beautifully. Chop the frozen lanspeak, put it in a cornet, make a thin elegant mesh on top and chill everything well.

Note: In exactly the same way, you can prepare a salad from the remaining roast: beef, veal, 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 snack is always prepared from hazel grouse.
Note: Lanspeek is a thickened, gooey, clear broth that has the density of a jelly. To get a bottle of ready-made lanspik, you need to take a bottle of ready-made broth and 12 sheets of gelatin, or a veal head, or two ox legs, or 5-6 veal legs.

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

Cookbook, 1912

Olivier salad. Proportion: chicken - 1 pc., Boiled potatoes - 5 pcs., Fresh cucumbers - 5 pcs., Truffle - 1 pc., Provencal sauce - 4 tablespoons. spoons.

Preparation: boil the chicken in the broth and, taking out, cool, remove all the flesh, both sirloin and from the legs, cut obliquely, thinly, into planks. Take large potatoes, round them in a column and cut into copecks. Peel fresh cucumbers and chop finely. Put all this in a saucepan, add a little salt, put the Provencal sauce and mix, and then put in a salad bowl, level with a slide, remove from above with shredded truffles, and the salad is ready, served specially for an appetizer.
Note: Salad de beef (appetizer). The same as Olivier, but the difference is that you have to take boiled meat instead of chicken. Cut the meat into thin leaves, combine with cucumbers, potatoes and Provencal sauce. Decorate with truffles.

In 5 years tsarist Russia will end with truffles. Agitation Mayakovsky declared hazel grouse bourgeois food, and those who survived the revolution, and then the Civil War, had no time for culinary delights. In the hungry year of 1921, the writer Arkady Averchenko recalled past feasts in the work "Fragments of Shattered to Shattered": “A glass of lemon vodka cost fifty dollars, but for the same fifty dollars the friendly barmen literally forced you to have a snack: 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, and mixed fats. One can only remember about Olivier.

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

Food preparation, a guide for catering establishments. 1945 year
Vegetable salad with game (olivier)
Fillet of boiled or fried cold game, boiled potatoes, gherkins or pickled cucumbers are cut into thin slices, green salad leaves, soy-kabul [sauce], mayonnaise, salt are added. All this is gently mixed, laid in a slide in a salad bowl, decorated with circles or slices of a hard egg, lettuce, olives, slices of game and slices of green cucumber. You can put 2-3 crayfish necks or pieces of canned crabs on a salad.

It is easy to see that little remained of the French snack by this time. Stalin's Olivier is a fantasy thing. In 1948, the Soviet culinary Bible, The Book of Delicious and Healthy Food, recommended adding green salad, lemon juice, apples and even powdered sugar to Olivier. In 1952, a book that called for abundance and showed the best examples of Soviet food photography, boiled carrots and, unexpectedly, cauliflower appeared as ingredients for the first time. They decorate the dish - without fish - no longer with crayfish, but with a boiled egg, in the future, the decoration gradually slides into the salad bowl and becomes an obligatory ingredient. Olivier is still considered a game salad, but around it, in the pages of the Book of Delicious 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 remakes on the subject of Olivier fixed in the obligatory collections of recipes: "Capital salad" (chicken, potatoes, cucumbers, salad, eggs, crabs), meat (all the same, only beef or tongue), "Salad with seafood" (fish, shrimp, potatoes, carrots, green peas) and the venerable "Game Salad", now served with hazel grouses, 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, it can be replaced with another one, or the dish can be completely released without it. It's not surprising that in the end Brezhnev's Olivier turned into a salad-maker: he crumbled what he got. 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 reinforced by a family tradition. Olivier is happily going through a change in ruling courses and financial crises, again becoming the dish without which lunch is not at lunchtime.

Cooking in Russian, America, 2003
Russian salad (salad Olivje), a must-have at all Russian parties.
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, 1 medium onion, peeled, 6 large potatoes, 6 eggs, 8 medium pickled cucumbers, a cup of green peas, green onions and dill, to serve.
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. Cook the chicken until it is evenly white.
2. Remove the bow.
3. While the chicken is cooking, wash the potatoes well, place them in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the potatoes are easy to peel. Drain the water.
4. While the chicken and potatoes are cooking, place the eggs in a large saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil at high temperature. Reduce heat, cover and leave 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 localities, Russians put carrots or grated apples in olivje. And keep in mind that you can't use low fat mayonnaise and sour cream for true traditional flavor!

The classic Olivier salad is known to everyone - it is a permanent companion of any festive event in many families. Today, few people think about the history of the appearance of this dish, but many years ago the composition of the salad was completely different. In this article, we will tell you how the dish was invented and write a recipe for a real Olivier.

The history of Olivier salad dates back to ... Moscow. The dish was invented by a French chef who came to conquer this city with his talent. The name of the now popular salad Olivier was given by the name of its creator - Lucien Olivier. It must be said that Lucien's two older brothers also studied cooking. In France, the Olivier family had their own culinary business. In many salads, the brothers added an unknown and rare for those times Major's sauce (now called mayonnaise). Modern mustard and egg mayonnaise is also the creation of Lucien Olivier. It was with mustard and egg sauce that the culinary specialist began to season his new salad.

At first, Lucien worked in third-party Moscow restaurants, preparing delicious French dishes, including Olivier salad. Soon Lucien managed to open his own restaurant called the Hermitage. In this institution, visitors were offered exclusively French cuisine. According to the history of Olivier salad, the creator of the dish did not reveal the secret of its preparation to anyone. The main highlight of this French salad was, of course, Lucien's mayonnaise sauce. Unfortunately, after the death of the creator, it was not possible to fully figure out the recipe for making mayonnaise dressing for everyone's favorite salad.

The most delicious dish quickly went "to the people", gradually the main components of the Olivier salad in the original version were replaced with cheaper and more affordable products. We can say that the current version of the salad is only vaguely similar to the culinary work of the famous French chef.

Real Olivier recipe

Lucien Olivier first gave his culinary creation a different name - "Game Mayonnaise". Moreover, the recipe for a real Olivier did not involve mixing all the ingredients with each other. For a new dish, Lucien boiled partridge and hazel grouse fillets, cut them into neat pieces, made the slices beautifully on a large platter, alternating the meat with jelly cubes made from the broth in which the game was cooked. Near the cold cuts, Lucien placed crayfish tails and boiled tongue, pouring sauce over these ingredients. In the central part of the dish, Olivier placed neatly chopped boiled potatoes with pickled gherkin cubes and egg slices. Lucien conceived the central part of the dish as a decorative element, not intended for food.

However, the mentality and culinary preferences of Russian gourmets made themselves felt literally at the first serving of the salad. Russian visitors to the restaurant simply mixed all the ingredients together, turning an exquisite French dish into an incomprehensible porridge of meat and vegetables. At first, Lucien was upset, but then decided, in revenge on the Russian ignorant, to prepare the visitors the same mixture of chopped food, well seasoned with mayonnaise sauce. The dish, prepared according to the recipe of a real Olivier, was a resounding success among Muscovites.

Today you have the opportunity to repeat the French culinary masterpiece. We offer a recipe for real Olivier, which originally included the following ingredients:

boiled hazel grouse fillet - 2 pieces;
boiled veal tongue - 1 piece;
black caviar - 100 g;
boiled crayfish - 25 pieces;
fresh salad - 250 g;
cucumbers-gherkins - half a 1 liter jar;
50 ml soy sauce-paste (modern soy sauce);
capers - 100 g;
steeply boiled eggs - 5 pieces;
fresh cucumbers - 2 pieces.

As a dressing, as we have already mentioned, Major's sauce was used. Its main ingredients are egg yolks and Provence olive oil. Lucien Olivier also added mustard and salt to the sauce.

If you cook a dish according to a real Olivier recipe, then its price will be impressive. But you will have a chance to get even a little closer to the original French dish, which gave the name to everyone's favorite salad - a greatly simplified version of Olivier. Bon Appetit!