Olivier salad for many ceased to be a festive dish. The classic sausage recipe is so simple that it is often repeated for everyday dinners, because the appetizer is tasty and satisfying. We will reveal the secrets of cooking your favorite salad and tell you how to change the usual composition so that the olivier becomes original.

Olivier salad - a classic recipe with sausage

It is difficult to imagine a festive Russian feast without Olivier. Once the salad was difficult to prepare, adding cancerous necks and even spawn caviar. But today the recipe has been simplified, although I have not lost it at all. How to cook a classic olivier? First, prepare the products.

Olivier includes the following ingredients:

  • 300 g of doctor's sausage;
  • 3 potatoes;
  • 3 eggs;
  • 3 pickled cucumbers;
  • 3 small carrots;
  • a can of green peas 300 g;
  • tasty ready-made mayonnaise - to taste;
  • salt and pepper - to taste;
  • greens for decoration.

Notice that we took an equal amount of components? This is the main "trick" of a delicious salad. The components should be approximately equal, so they will not be lost in the salad and will be felt separately, while perfectly combining with each other. Overdo it with potatoes - get a fresh and “starchy” “Olivier”, you will regret sausage - and it will be missed, do not report carrots and peas: the signature sweetness of the salad, which gives a unique flavor to the finished dish, will go away. In a word, one cannot be greedy and economize.

The secret of delicious classic olivier in the right sausage and sliced; only the highest grade for salad must be chosen: a bad sausage will ruin everything; cut the appetizer into neat cubes the size of 5 mm.

Cook and cool the vegetables.Finely chop the cucumbers into cubes, and do the same with the “Doctor's” sausage. Add the remaining vegetables, cut into small cubes. Pour peas. In the process of cooking the salad does not need to be disturbed. This is easy to do just before serving, seasoning everything with sauce. It is very important to cool the salad: in a warm form, the taste of "Olivier" is completely different, it clearly loses. Serve in a beautiful transparent salad bowl, decorating the salad with parsley or sprigs of dill.

How to cook with beef?

You can make beef salad with beef. In famous Russian restaurants, chefs never go to the "Soviet" version with boiled sausage. In the restaurant version of "Olivier" always put only beef tenderloin, which is pre-cooked until soft and as it should be cooled.

In such a salad, it will be right to put pickled gherkins and capers in a 1: 1 ratio: it will turn out to be spicy, which is in perfect harmony with the sweetness of carrots, green peas and fresh potatoes. A salad can be made without onions, but it is easy to add half the head of a sweet variety or onion, previously scalded with boiling water (this will leave the bitterness).

Serve the salad in portions in the form of neat washers: the chilled Olivier keeps its shape perfectly and never falls apart.

With chicken and fresh cucumbers

Olivier salad with chicken, many prefer the usual. This definitely makes sense: chicken gives the salad lightness, especially if we take fresh cucumbers as the second component. To understand the proportions, remember that the amount of meat and cucumbers should be approximately equal.

Potatoes for salad can be cut into cubes raw and boiled, dipped in boiling salted water; This technique is preferred by the eminent chef Ilya Lazerson.

This olivier turns out to be fresh, spring, very light, and you can season it with fresh dill, chopped very finely. Salad is seasoned immediately before serving: otherwise the cucumbers will give out the juice and our Olivier will turn out to be watery.

Winter salad with mushrooms

Winter salad is easy to prepare with mushrooms: you hardly tasted such "Olivier", and yet the taste is interesting and piquant. You can add pickled mushrooms, fried champignons in a frying pan, or you can sprinkle the finished olives lightly with dried mushrooms, crushed into dust: they will fill the dish with a mushroom aroma, but the pieces will not come across.

It is better to cook mushroom winter salad with chicken or beef: mushrooms do not combine with cooked sausage, the taste will turn out to be strange. But chicken, with fresh cucumbers is the best option for adding mushrooms.

Cooking is very simple:

  1. Grind vegetables (potatoes, carrots) into cubes.
  2. Finely chop the boiled eggs.
  3. Cut the boiled chicken into slices.
  4. Add fresh cucumber, sliced ​​into thin strips.
  5. Sprinkle all with mushrooms (or add the fried or pickled mushrooms).
  6. Salt, pepper to taste.
  7. Dress with mayonnaise mixed with sour cream in a 2: 1 ratio.
  8. You can squeeze a clove of garlic into the salad, but green peas in this case are superfluous.

We eat chilled salad, eating a fresh white baguette. By the way, this option can be prepared by laying out all the components in a transparent bowl in layers. Top up with all the mayonnaise net. It will be a spectacular appetizer appropriate for any celebration.

Smoked Fish Olivier Salad

If you have never tried to cook olivier with fish - immediately correct the mistake! It is tasty, unusual, very original and juicy. For the salad you will need any cold-smoked fish - noble trout, pink salmon, chum salmon, mackerel and even herring. At your discretion and prosperity. The fish should be oily and very fresh - these are the only requirements for the quality of the product.

If desired, you can try to replace smoked fish with any canned in their own juice; in order not to fall into a rush when buying, buy jars with the words "made at sea" and the contents of canned food will never let you down.

You can try to make a salad from hot smoked fish, but it is important to understand: it can fall apart due to its soft structure. Then we cook everything just like in a traditional Olivier, with the only difference being that we will add fish, not sausage. We fill the salad with mayonnaise, decorate with parsley, cool and enjoy the taste!

Original shrimp and avocado

Unusual and tasty version of "Olivier" with avocado and shrimp (or any seafood). Refueling will be made not by the bored “Provence”, but by the sauce, which we will prepare from cashew nuts.

For the salad we prepare:

  • 300 g of cooked shrimp (peeled);
  • large carrots;
  • 2 fresh cucumbers;
  • avocado fruit (large and ripe);
  • 2 hard boiled eggs;
  • green peas to taste;
  • onions - 1 pc. (better than sweet);
  • 100 g cashews;
  • lemon - 1 pc.;
  • a teaspoon of vinegar;
  • a tablespoon of mustard;
  • salt, black pepper to taste;
  • garlic - 1 clove;
  • 4 tbsp. l vegetable oil.

Getting to the collection of lettuce. We cut boiled vegetables into a small cube. Add chopped avocados and fresh cucumbers. In a blender, we prepare nut dressing: for this, nuts, lemon juice, oil, garlic, mustard, salt, pepper are placed in a blender and punch to make the mass homogeneous.

If the mayonnaise seemed thick, it is easy to dilute it by adding olive oil. We season the vegetables with homemade cashew dressing, mix the salad, and lay the shrimps on top. It will turn out a delicious, original appetizer, which is best served in portions, placed in special culinary rings. Such a salad is suitable for all adherents of a healthy lifestyle and vegetarians.

With smoked sausage

Everyone who at least once tried to replace boiled sausage with smoked, stop making a traditional salad. Smoked sausage gives a spicy flavor, but it is better not to make a salad with pickles, but with pickled cucumbers or replace cucumbers with capers.

We prepare the salad, adhering to the proportions of the classic version, but instead of the "Doctor's" put any cooked smoked sausage. It is important to purchase a good product, not soy, so carefully read the composition before buying.

With boiled sausage “Soviet style”

Olivier with boiled sausage can turn out to be budgetary if you buy an affordable variety, say, of chicken meat.

Making a snack is very simple:

  1. Cook potatoes, carrots and eggs.
  2. We cut everything into cubes.
  3. Add a couple of barrel cucumbers.
  4. Cut the sausage into small pieces.
  5. We fall asleep green peas.
  6. Season with any mayonnaise to taste.

Someone likes more refueling, someone less: the decision is yours. You can put a little mustard in the salad, and the dish will become more piquant. And it’s also easy to reduce the calorie content of a dish by mixing mayonnaise with natural yogurt or low-fat sour cream. Cool the appetizer, put in a salad bowl (or portioned saucers), decorate with parsley or fresh cucumber roses. We serve to the table.

Olivier is valued for the budget cost of the components and, of course, for its unique taste. “Russian salad” - what is his name abroad - will never get bored if you are not afraid to add original ingredients. Try a new one, discover other culinary horizons. Bon Appetit everyone!