What's the most important thing about celebrating New Year's Eve? The presents? The games? Traditions? No! The most important thing is the New Year's table.
Russian people pay a great deal of attention to holiday dishes. They can draw up menus and design dishes for months.
You could say that New Year's table - is a master class in every hostess' culinary skills.
But one thing remains constant: on every New Year's table in every Russian home there is the main New Year's salad - «Olivier».
It's not just a salad, but a long-standing tradition and even one of the main symbols of the New Year.
The history of the Olivier salad«
This salad was originally invented in France by chef Lucien Olivier. And it was very different from the salad we are used to.
The original salad included the most deluxe products:
- Black caviar
- Filet of grouse
- Cancerous necks
- Truffle
Soviet technologists decided that crayfish and grouse could be replaced by boiled sausage, caviar by canned peas, and truffles could be dispensed with altogether.
The result is a hearty national salad with a French name. The dish consists of the simplest products:
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Canned green peas
- Boiled eggs
- Pickled cucumber
- Boiled sausage
- Mayonnaise
Such a salad can become not only an addition, but also a full-fledged dish.
Why Olivier is eaten on New Year's Eve.
New Year's salad «Olivier» became in Soviet times.
In the 60s in the USSR, many products were in short supply. At the same time, a recipe for a salad called «Stolichny» began to appear in cookbooks.
But even taking into account the most common products for modern man, such a salad then could afford only on a big holiday. This is how «Olivier» became the main New Year's salad.
This salad has even become the property of movies and literature.
The secret of the popularity of this salad is in the simplicity of preparation and products that everyone has.
Now Olivier no longer appears on every New Year's table in Russia. And some housewives have begun to experiment with the recipe.
So variations with red fish and caviar instead of sausage appeared. Some people make salad with meat. Cucumbers are also used in different ways.
Here it all depends on desire and possibilities.
Yes, nowadays salad «Olivier» is available for every person almost every day. But it still remains one of the main symbols of the New Year and is most often prepared only on big holidays.
