Soviet Classic Olivier Salad - Step-by-Step Recipe and Preparation Secrets

The Olivier salad is not just a dish, but a symbol of holidays in the USSR and now in Russia, especially for New Year. Its taste is familiar to everyone from childhood, and preparing Olivier often becomes a family ritual.

The original recipe for the salad, invented in the 19th century by French chef Lucien Olivier, included expensive ingredients: partridges, black caviar, capers. The Soviet Olivier was adapted to the available products and maintained the tradition of uniting them in one dish. The role of partridges was taken over by cooked meat, and the capers were replaced by pickles.

We share the original recipe for the classic Olivier from the USSR, which preserves the authentic taste and distinctive festive atmosphere.

Ingredients (for 4–6 servings)
— Potatoes - 4 tubers
— Carrots - 2 pieces
— Eggs - 4 pieces
— Pickles - 4 medium (can be replaced with marinated ones)
— Canned peas - 1 can (approx. 300 grams)
— Cooked meat - 300 grams
— Mayonnaise - 200 grams
— Salt - to taste
— Black pepper - to taste
— Herbs (dill or parsley)

Step-by-Step Recipe

Wash the potatoes and carrots and cook them in salted water until soft (or bake for 1.5 hours at 160° in the oven). Then peel and cut into small cubes (approx. 0.5 cm).

Hard boil the eggs (7-8 minutes), cool in ice water, peel, and cut into cubes like the potatoes and carrots.

Cut the pickles into small cubes and squeeze out the excess juice beforehand (otherwise, the Olivier salad will be too wet). Cut the meat into similarly sized cubes. In a deep bowl, mix all the vegetable cubes and the eggs. Add the peas without liquid to the salad (the liquid should be drained beforehand).

Add mayonnaise (this is a very important flavour element - it gives a very Soviet taste). Salt and pepper to your taste.

Mix the salad and place it in a nice serving bowl.

For decoration, use sprigs of herbs or sliced pickles.

Tips for the perfect Olivier:

Don't be afraid to experiment with the amount of ingredients. Some like more potatoes, others prefer to focus on meat or pickles. For example, I love adding fresh cucumber.

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Salad "Herring under a Fur Coat" ("Shuba") is one of the most popular and widespread salads, without which no New Year's celebration in Russia is complete!

Firmly established in the imagination as a culinary symbol of Soviet and modern Russian holidays, the salad might actually be of European origin (there are several theories about its origin).

Culinary historians point out that in the 19th century, salads combining herring and various vegetables already existed in Scandinavian countries, Great Britain, and the German states north of the Danube.

One of the stories about the origin of the famous "Herring under a Fur Coat" dates back to 19th century Russia. According to this version, the dish was created by a chef at the famous Moscow restaurant "Rossiya," which was popular among the upper class.

In 1883, on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Alexander III, who later earned the nickname Peacemaker, an unconventional salad was prepared. It was based on pieces of trout covered with layers of beets and red beetroot, and the final touch was a Provençal sauce with anchovies.

There is also another quite interesting story about the salad's origin, involving the host of the Moscow tavern Anastas Bogomilov. It is said that his establishment became the scene of lively political debates in 1918, where exhausting physical arguments were often used, leading to large-scale brawls and causing both reputational and material damage.

The idea is said to have come to the chef Aristarch Prokoptsev. He devised a dish that was meant to symbolize the various layers of society in the new Soviet reality: herring embodied the working class, onions and potatoes – the peasantry, and beetroot – the revolutionary spirit.

Regulars had the opportunity to try the new dish on New Year's Eve 1919, against the backdrop of the defeat of the White Armies at the gates of Moscow, which is why it immediately became extremely popular in the community.

Although this story sounds quite romantic, many serious culinary historians tend to believe that everything is much more prosaic and "Herring under a Fur Coat," as we know it today, emerged in the first half of the 1960s from Soviet housewives' kitchen experiments with fish vinaigrette.

Regardless of its origin, the salad remains a popular dish. In 2018, a record was set in Moscow when a "Herring under a Fur Coat" weighing 1018 kilograms was prepared – this is how restaurateurs celebrated the dish's alleged centenary, supposedly invented by Prokoptsev!

Traditional Recipe for Layered Salad with Herring:

— Herring fillet = 250 g;
— Onion = 1 piece;
— Chicken egg = 4 pieces;
— Potatoes = 2 pieces;
— Carrot = 1 piece;
— Fresh beetroot = 2 pieces;
— Add mayonnaise to taste;
— No need for salt – the fish is already salty enough.

The recipe is simple:

Boil the carrot, potato, and beetroot in their skins (the water does not need to be salted, as the herring and mayonnaise are already salty). Or bake them for 1.5 hours at 160° in the oven. Then let the vegetables cool and peel them.

Hard boil the eggs.

Place the grated potato at the bottom of the salad bowl, pieces of salted herring, and then layers of finely chopped onions, carrots, and coarsely grated beetroot. You can add a layer of grated boiled eggs on top of the beetroot for decoration.

Each layer is covered with mayonnaise. After that, the salad should be placed in the fridge for 2 hours to infuse. During this process, the top layer of mayonnaise will be stained red by the beetroot juice.

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