Salad Olivieh a/k/a Stolichniy

For all of my Armenian and Russian friends and family salad “Olivieh” will always be associated with New Year and Birthdays. Growing up, I do not remember any feast without this salad. While women took the decoration part pretty seriously, as it was an undisclosed competition amongst households, the rest of us impatiently waited to taste it. When someone mentions “comfort food” instantly this is what I think of. While recipes vary from family to family, the concept is ultimately the same. This salad also has its second name “Stolichniy” – which is the most common name in my part of the world.

Here is what you will need:

3 medium potatoes

2 large carrots

2 medium dill pickles

½ pounds of boiled beef

1 can of sweet peas


1/3 cups mayonnaise
 and sour cream (each)

salt & pepper

1 small onion - optional

2 hard-boiled eggs – optional

How to make: 

Boil potatoes, carrots, and beef. 

You can boil the vegetables together, but make sure to boil the beef separately.

Cut potatoes, pickles, carrots and cooked beef into small cubes.

Add green peas, mayonnaise and sour cream mix the salad.



Add salt, pepper to taste. 



Additionally:

You can add chopped eggs, but you cannot keep the salad for more than 24 hours.

Onions will add extra flavor: if you decide to use them, make sure to chop them very finely.

Often beef is substituted by chicken or sausage, which changes the taste completely.

Lastly it will taste better if you add mayo and sour cream before serving to each portion and refrigerate the mix without mayo and sour cream.

For Curious Minds:

The name of this salad goes back 1860s to Lucien Olivier who invented the salad. He was the chef of the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow. While this salad became very popular, its recipe was kept secret.

Some speculate that the ingredients were, veal tongue, caviar, lettuce, crayfish tails, capers, smoked duck. Also supposedly the original Olivier dressing was a type of mayonnaise, made with French wine vinegar, mustard, and olive oil: its exact recipe, however, remains unknown. 



Eventually, one of Olivier's sous-chefs, Ivan Ivanov, attempted to steal the recipe. While preparing the dressing one evening, alone as was his custom, Olivier was suddenly called away on some emergency. Ivanov took advantage of the situation, sneaked into Olivier's private kitchen and got everything he thought he needed. Ivanov then quit and went to work as a chef for Moskva, , where he began to serve a suspiciously similar salad under the name "Stolichniy" (The Capital Salad). Even though this salad became very popular once Ivanov sold the recipe for the salad to various publishing houses, it was reported that the dressing on the Stolichniy salad was missing something. 

In 1905 Hermitage closed and the Olivier departed from Russia, thus the salad could not be referred as "Olivier" (spelling also varies).  





As inevitably happens with gourmet recipes the ingredients are rare, expensive, seasonal, or difficult to prepare. So they are gradually replaced with cheaper and more readily available ones until they develop into a common dish we know. This is where this salad has its two names, and the variations. 

Enjoy!