Olivier cooking secrets. How to cook the perfect Olivier salad: the secrets of experienced chefs

Here are some cooking tips that will help you prepare the perfect delicious salad.

Olivier is prepared in almost every family and immediately in large quantities in order to stretch the pleasure for several days. Preparing it tender and tasty is quite simple, if you do not make a few mistakes.

Common mistakes in cooking Olivier

Fill with one mayonnaise

Undoubtedly, it is very convenient to dress the salad only with it, but then it will turn out to be too heavy and satisfying. It turns out quite tasty if low-fat sour cream or heavy cream is added to mayonnaise, as was done before the revolution.

In order for the dressing to turn out thick, tasty and healthy, you can put thick Greek yogurt. It has the consistency of sour cream and the nutritional properties of kefir. And the prebiotics contained in yogurt aid digestion. In order to cook it yourself, take a colander and cover it with cheesecloth. Then put regular natural yogurt on it without any additives. Let it drain for several hours. In a separate container, combine mayonnaise and yogurt in a ratio of one to one. If desired, you can add a drop of lemon juice, and season the salad with this mixture.

If you want to cook Olivier the way they cook it in a restaurant, then you will have to make your own mayonnaise. It's simple enough. It is perfectly stored for several days, it is convenient to make it 3-4 days before the feast. Be sure to dress the salad just before serving. This must be done in such a way that unnecessary moisture does not appear in it. It is necessary to separate everything into separate containers, and send it to the refrigerator. And the next day, just dress the salad.

Add sausage to Olivier

It's like going to the theater in a tracksuit. Sausage used to be put in the Moskovsky salad, but it should not be in Olivier. Even if the doctor's sausage was always served by your beloved grandmother. But in real Olivier it is not used.

The choice of main ingredients is yours. You can take boiled good meat (beef or chicken), crabs, boiled tongue and even baked meat. If you take the story, then the French chef Lucien Olivier cooked it from cancer necks. When they were gone, they began to replace them with caviar. You can add both crayfish necks and some caviar. By the way, the author of this famous salad added grouse to it.

add more potatoes

There are plenty of great potato salads out there, but the real Olivier is not one of them. They used to put a lot, because the rest of the ingredients were expensive and could not be bought. Nowadays, both cucumbers and green peas are on the shelves in any store.

If this vegetable is put in a salad in large quantities, its consistency will become starchy and viscous. And, of course, the rest of the ingredients will not be noticeable. In addition, the potato absorbs all the dressing, and thus, you have to put a lot of mayonnaise. And this is no longer elegant Olivier.

At the present time, meals should be healthy and light. And after the holiday, you should want to dance, and not fall apart on the couch. We recommend putting less potatoes. 4 potatoes, each weighing 100 g, for 12 servings. This is the best option.

Use Canned Green Peas

Since our mothers and grandmothers used to put only canned peas, we are used to cooking the same way. Freezing vegetables is an innovation of the last two decades. We recommend using frozen green peas, which you can either buy from the store or worry about freezing in season.

Leave it for half an hour to thaw, and add to Olivier. There will be no obsessive sweetness in it and it crunches perfectly, like a lightly salted cucumber. Thus, freshness will appear in the salad, from a heavy winter salad with mayonnaise and boiled root vegetables, it will turn into an elegant healthy salad.

Add one egg

Famous chefs prepare Olivier in different ways, but in each recipe the only thing is the same - a lot of eggs. They are responsible for tenderness in the salad. Therefore, we recommend that you take at least three eggs for 12 servings. And remember: there are never too many eggs in this salad. And then you will definitely be able to make a delicious fresh and healthy Olivier salad, which can become a family recipe.

Bon appetit!

Having survived the peak of popularity in the 70s and 80s, Olivier salad still occupies an honorable place on the New Year's table of Russians. However, over the years it has changed a little, becoming a little more refined in taste (due to the quality of the ingredients) and a little less high-calorie (due to replacing mayonnaise with lighter sauces). By adding a boiled turkey fillet or tongue and reducing the amount of potatoes, you can give a familiar salad a new twist and make it the centerpiece of a festive table.

Boiled vegetables should be cut only after they have completely cooled.- otherwise you have every chance to cook vegetable puree. For the same reason, it is imperative to cook vegetables in their uniforms, so their dense structure is better preserved.

The ideal cut size for all vegetables is about the size of a green pea. You can achieve a standard either by spending time on practice, or by entrusting this impressive amount of work to a kitchen machine, for example Moulinex QA509D32 , which will easily give the perfect result.

Do not overdo it with potatoes: professional chefs believe that the amount of potatoes should not be big and correspond to the number of expected guests (that is, one medium potato is put in the salad for each guest).

So that the potatoes do not stick together, after cutting it, you can salt it, pour in two teaspoons of vegetable oil and mix.

Place the peas last: its delicate structure does not withstand long mixing. Add a few tablespoons of brine from a jar of peas to the salad– and it will no longer be dry, as sometimes happens even after adding mayonnaise.

The salad will become tastier if you fill it not at the end, but sequentially – layer by layer.So, add chopped cucumbers and chopped onions to mayonnaise, and then season boiled vegetables with this sauce first, then meat products or sausage, eggs and peas added there.

You can make a salad less calorie,if you dilute mayonnaise with sour cream in a ratio of 1: 1. You can make a salad truly tasty and unique with the help of homemade mayonnaise. "M.Vkus" is about how easy it is to cook.

When dressing, instead of black pepper, it is better to use white: its taste is more tender.,and it will not spoil the soft and harmonious structure of the salad. Salted or pickled cucumbers can be supplemented with fresh ones, this will make the taste of the salad less concentrated.

After cooking and dressing (only the part that is served at the table is worth dressing), leave the salad for one hour at room temperature. Just like borscht, Olivier needs to stand for a while to become truly tasty.

Serve "Olivier" in portions, laying it on flat plates with the help of a culinary ring and garnishing with fresh herbs.

Salad "Olivier" is one of the recognized symbols of the New Year in our country, along with a decorated Christmas tree and tangerines. A festive table without this traditional dish, you see, will be incomplete. Salad "Olivier" can be safely called one of the components of the New Year's atmosphere.

"Olivier" according to the recipe that is known to every housewife, has nothing to do with this dish. The famous chef Lucien Olivier cooked it in a completely different way in the middle of the 19th century. The Hermitage restaurant, where the French culinary specialist worked, recommended its visitors to try the chef's signature dish, which was prepared from crayfish necks, black caviar, partridge fillet, quail eggs and potatoes. As you understand, the set of products was strikingly different from the Olivier salad that we are all used to. Lettuce owes its metamorphoses to the revolution and the times of scarcity that followed. The name of the salad remains the same, but the recipe of the dish has undergone major changes. This is how our favorite "Olivier" was born - easy to prepare and very tasty.

Despite the simple and well-known recipe, each housewife gets her own salad. It would seem that it could be easier: cut boiled potatoes, carrots and eggs into small cubes, add pickled cucumbers and peas, salt and season everything with mayonnaise. However, for some, the salad simply melts in the mouth, while for others, the result is a dish of unintelligible taste that cannot boast of the necessary balance of ingredients and piquancy. The thing is that in order to achieve the ideal result, you need to know some secrets of cooking.

Let's try to figure out how experienced chefs prepare Olivier salad.

Secret one: the quality of mayonnaise.

We are all used to dressing the salad with store-bought mayonnaise. But any cook will tell you that the taste of the dish will become much richer if you are not too lazy and make your own mayonnaise. Store-bought mayonnaise most often sins with the prevalence of vinegar over other ingredients. Vinegar interrupts all the aroma and taste of the salad. Try replacing it with homemade mayonnaise and you will immediately feel the difference. You can find the homemade mayonnaise recipe here.

If you don’t have the time and desire to cook mayonnaise yourself, then just mix the store product with sour cream in equal parts. This dressing is gentler and healthier.
Another important point: do not season the entire salad with mayonnaise at once. It is better to cut the ingredients and mix with the mayonnaise the amount you need. The rest - refuel as needed. Chopped ingredients can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days. Just transfer them to a special container and cover with a lid.
If you immediately mix the entire volume with mayonnaise, then the salad will quickly acquire a sour taste, and it can be stored in this form much less.

Secret two: less potatoes.

If there are too many potatoes in the salad, then the taste loses significantly. A large amount of potatoes is a Soviet invention: this way it was possible to put less expensive and scarce ingredients. Potato busting makes the salad viscous, and the taste is starchy. Of course, potatoes are an important ingredient, but you should not clog other components of the salad with them. Try to keep the number of components balanced. For 3 eggs, take 4 medium potatoes, no more.
Another important point: start chopping vegetables only when they are completely cool. Otherwise, there is a risk of getting a kind of puree at the exit, and not neat cubes.

Secret number three: more eggs.

Another common mistake is saving eggs. Eggs are the component responsible for the delicate taste of the salad. If there are few of them, then, accordingly, "Olivier" is not as tasty as we would like. Don't feel sorry for this component. One or two eggs is not enough for a volume designed for 4 potatoes. Take at least three or even four (depending on the size of the eggs). Some cooks are guided by this formula: the number of potatoes and eggs should be equal to the number of guests.

Secret Four: Down with the sausage!

Another echo of the Soviet past is the tradition of adding boiled sausage to Olivier. Believe me, if you give up your habits and replace the sausage with boiled meat, your salad will only benefit. Add the protein ingredient to your taste: it can be boiled chicken or beef or boiled beef tongue. In any combination, the salad will be more refined in taste than its sausage counterpart.

Secret five: soft peas.

Even such a trifle as peas can significantly spoil the taste of a salad. If this product is hard or too watery (which happens quite often), then Olivier will be hopelessly spoiled. Before adding canned peas to a salad, be sure to taste it. If the tasting result satisfies you, add the ingredient to the dish.

In addition to the above ingredients, some cooks add sour apple and dill to the salad for piquancy. If you like a more pronounced fresh taste, then diversify the traditional Olivier salad food set with these ingredients.

That's all the secrets. As you can see, there are not many of them and they are quite simple. But their ignorance can spoil the taste of the holiday. Bon appetit! And Happy New Year!

Favorite salad for your favorite holiday of the year! Well, of course, this is Olivier salad, prepared according to a favorite recipe for the next New Year. Each family has its own traditional Olivier recipe. Ask any hostess, and she will express confidence that it is her Olivier recipe that is the most original and classic. In fact, there are so many variations of this salad that you can’t even count it. We would like to tell you here, dear hostesses, preoccupied with the New Year's fuss, how to make the most delicious, literally royal Olivier salad and give you some tips that will add "zest" to your salad.

Classic Olivier Salad Ingredients

Each new or, more precisely, the next Olivier recipe contains classic salad ingredients. How to choose them correctly? The main ingredient in any Olivier recipe is a meat product. It includes:

Boiled sausage (you need to choose only excellent quality, such as a doctor's sausage in a natural casing);
. poultry meat (preferably without skin, it can be boiled, fried, smoked, baked, or you can mix these types of poultry preparation for salad with each other);
. pork, beef (boiled, preferably without fat);
. tongue (like any other meat offal, the classic Olivier recipe suggests them boiled);
. special types of meat, for example, hazel grouse, partridge, turkey (these types of meat products contained an old Olivier salad recipe.

In addition to the meat product, the Olivier recipe contains:

Potatoes (there should be very little of it in the salad, it should also not be boiled, but it should be boiled for the “in uniform” salad);
. vegetables to taste (boiled carrots, fresh onions);
. eggs (boil for salad should be over low heat, so that the protein will be soft and loose, and the yolk elastic, which is what we need in this case);
. cucumbers (ideally, if two varieties of cucumbers are used - fresh and salted / pickled at the same time);
. green peas, since without it the Olivier recipe will lose its piquancy (you can use both canned and frozen);
. greens (the salad is often simply decorated with it, but those who wish can chop a little dill or parsley into it);
. fish products (for example, sturgeon, red fish, caviar, crab meat, fish balyk and others contained a classic 18th century Olivier recipe);
. sauce dressing (today, store-bought or home-made mayonnaise is used, it also happened to dress the salad with other sauce options, for example, a mixture of mayonnaise and sour cream / kefir);
. spices (salt recipe Olivier should contain a minimum, it is better to add salt to the finished product to taste, it is also quite suitable as a seasoning for salad Olivier ground black, red or white peppers).

Helpful cooking tips

We discussed what components the classic Olivier salad consists of - every housewife keeps its recipe literally under her heart)). But here are some tips for its more successful preparation and storage, I would still like to give here.

Tip 1. All vegetables and other salad products should be cut in the same style. For example, small cubes. This will better reveal the taste of the dish and your Olivier recipe will only benefit from this.

Tip 2. To properly add potatoes and boiled eggs to a salad, you should calculate how many guests will be at your table for the New Year. If ten, for example, then the same number of potatoes and eggs need to be boiled for a salad.

Tip 3: Don't ruin your Olivier recipe by tossing hot or even warm ingredients into a salad. Wait for cutting them to cool completely.

Tip 4. Guests will appreciate your Olivier recipe if, after cooking, the salad will stand for just a couple of hours on the kitchen table at room temperature. In the future, of course, it must be stored in the refrigerator, adding another portion to the vases on the table when the salad disappears from them.

Tip 5. Do not serve Olivier salad as a side dish for second hot dishes. He is completely independent and self-sufficient. Put it on the New Year's table along with other salads and cold appetizers.

We hope that after our sincere and good advice, it is your Olivier recipe that will be the most memorable, the most delicious on the festive table!

Is it possible to cite at least one more salad as an example, which will be a real symbol of home holidays and a family feast? Probably not. Olivier salad has become a real classic, they know how to cook it in almost every home, and everywhere there are little secrets and preferences.

It is believed that it is quite simple to prepare, the ingredients for Olivier are quite affordable and relatively inexpensive, but, as they say, everywhere there are little secrets and tricks to make the dish really tasty.

If you are wondering how to cook Olivier salad so that the result is five plus, then we will definitely share with you all the secrets of this process. True, we will do this a little later, but first we will get acquainted with the history of its occurrence on the horizons of modern culinary.

Interestingly, such a popular and already almost inalienable recipe for the peoples of the post-Soviet space appeared some 50-60 years ago in the form in which we know it today. He owes his invention to the famous French chef Lucien Olivier, who, by the way, awarded him the modern name.

Lucien Olivier in the 60s of the XIX century kept a small restaurant on Trubnaya Square called the Hermitage, the main attraction of which was the eponymous one.

Lucien kept his recipe under the strictest confidence, and masked all the ingredients of the dish with the help of sauce and mayonnaise in such a way that at first glance it was very difficult to determine what was included in it. After the death of the creator, it was believed that the recipe was lost, however, in 1904, a recipe was made public, which was considered a true reproduction of the original.

It included completely different ingredients that we are used to seeing in our dish: hazel grouse meat, and veal tongue, fresh cucumbers and a little pressed caviar, everything was seasoned with a special sauce and decorated with fresh salad.

Isn't it hard to find any similarity? In Soviet times, Olivier salad began to appear on the tables of ordinary residents, however, it acquired a somewhat “communist” character: the dish was created from those products that were easier to find in times of shortage. It was then that peas and boiled potatoes, eggs and potatoes appeared in it, as well as a taste that is so familiar and familiar to us.

Cooking features

Today, a salad familiar from childhood, like any other, has its own characteristics and cooking secrets that help to prepare a truly delicious dish. So what are they?

• All salad ingredients are best cut into small cubes, the size of which will be in harmony with the size of the peas. The same size of all components of the salad will reveal the taste of each, as well as its interaction with each other, in addition, this type of dish looks more appetizing and attractive. To make the olivier somewhat non-standard, the components can be cut, for example, into long straws.
• The classic salad recipe always uses boiled sausage, but today boiled chicken fillet, veal or any other meat product of your choice has long been used instead. With the help of such additions, the dish acquires new flavor notes: with chicken, Olivier becomes more tender, but with beef, a more weighty meat shade is acquired. What to choose is a master's business, but if you want to cook exactly the traditional version of the dish, then you will definitely need boiled sausage.
• In addition to meat, eggs and potatoes are always added to the salad, and so it is believed that there should be exactly as many of them as guests are planned at the table. Potatoes are cooked in their uniforms in advance, the main thing is not to overcook them, because during cutting they will fall apart and turn into mashed potatoes. Potatoes and eggs, like all other ingredients that can be cooked, must be cooled to room temperature, and only after that mix and refrigerate.
• There are some experimenters who instead of meat put fish products in the salad, for example, crab neck or pieces of red fish fillet. Though with a big stretch, but such variants of a popular dish can also be called "Olivier".
• In order for the salad to stand in the refrigerator for as long as possible, it is better not to season it with mayonnaise immediately, but to do it immediately before serving.
• It is customary to decorate a ready-made salad with greenery, as well as figures from the products that are part of it. For example, peas, beautiful meat or vegetable circles, as well as openwork molds.
• By the way, it is not necessary to use mayonnaise as a dressing, other fermented milk products are also acceptable - kefir or sour cream. It is believed that the best dressing for Olivier is 50 percent fat mixed with homemade sour cream, but low-calorie mayonnaise is not recommended. To somehow diversify the dressing, you can add a little mustard or horseradish to it, or you can make mayonnaise with your own hands, which will also add a few unusual flavor notes to the dish.

Cooking a real Olivier with our own hands

To make the result really tasty, not only the recipe itself is important, but also the quality of the products that are used in it, so approach the process of preparing them responsibly. So what do we need?

• medium-sized potatoes - 5 pcs.;
• pickled cucumbers - 6 pcs.;
• egg - 5 pcs.;
• carrots - 1 pc.;
• onions - 0.5 pcs.;
• chicken fillet - 500 g;
• canned peas - 1 jar;
• mayonnaise - 6-7 tbsp. spoons;
• salt, pepper to taste;
• greenery for decoration.

In advance, it is necessary to boil potatoes in their uniforms, carrots, eggs and chicken fillet, cool to room temperature and only then proceed to cutting. To begin with, we cut the fillet - into small cubes, then cucumbers - if you decide to use fresh ones, then be sure to cut off the skin, so the salad will turn out more tender.

Then add salt and pepper to taste, greens can not only decorate the appearance, but also add to the total mass. It remains only to fill everything with mayonnaise, mix well and let it brew for 1 hour. Before serving, decorate and serve chilled.