Cuisine: Russian
Timing: an hour
Cooking level: easy
Nutrition: high
Like the Ukrainian red soup borsch, the Russian olivye salad is perfectly known as something symbolic to all those who lived in Soviet era. This salad is a very rich combination of tastes and flavors, and has somewhat classy taste as well. This is one of the rare dishes that you want to eat more and more no matter how fed up you are. The salad olivye, is also called “Stolichniy salad” which translated from Russian means urban salad. The reason why it is called urban salad is that it combines so many different ingredients in it and you are also well aware that the Soviet Union was a union of different people and cultures, and this salad, better than anything is a cultural symbol of Post-Soviet countries.
So here is the list of ingredients we need to have for this salad.
2 big potatoes diced beforehand
3 diced carrots
2 cups of frozen or marinate peas
Chopped parsley
1 cup of mayonnaise or sour cream
White vinegar
Salt
Beef meat
Marinate cucumbers
So the very first thing we need to do, is to boil water and place the beef meat there in order to make it cooked. Meanwhile the meat is being prepared you have to make take the potatoes and carrots and boil them separately. Once they are boiled and cooked you have to cut them into cub shapes, both the potatoes and the carrots. Then you have to add them in a big bowl. Then you have to cut them into cubes and into the bowl, and then cut the marinate cucumber as well and add in that bowl. Then you have to add the marinate peas into it, the chopped parsley. Then after you make sure that the beef meat is cooked properly you have to cut it into cubes as well and add to the mass we have. For the last add the mayonnaise or the sour cream. The sour cream is much more preferable as it is less oily and healthier than the mayonnaise. So your salad is ready.
As you can see the salad contains lots of different ingredients, thanks to which the salad is a big mixture and is called urban. It is a very popular dish in all around Post Soviet era. Usually having the salad on the New Year table is a must for most of the families in Armenia, in Russia, in Ukraine and in Belarus. It is more than just a salad for these countries but cultural attribute and a nice tradition. At the same time it is very tasty!
The nutrition is really high, because of meat and all the vegetables there. Once you eat it, you feel full immediately, but you still keep on eating as you cannot help stopping. The timing is middle. It will take you about one hour to make it. It is not about difficulty that much, but about the number of ingredients. It is really easy to make.
Thus, we highly recommend you to make this salad at least once in your life, and after making for the first time you will want to make it more and more. We are more than sure about that.
Good Appetite!
