Not just Olivier: what alternative salads will decorate the New Year's table
There comes a time when we all plan festive dishes for the table for the New Year. Salads traditionally occupy an important place in this list among Russians, and first of all homemade olivier. Izvestia found out when cold appetizers became an indispensable part of the festive feast in our country and what interesting dishes could compete with the main symbol of Russian cuisine.
When did we start eating complex salads as an appetizer
Today, it has become the norm to start a feast with salads, but in pre-revolutionary Russia, the meal almost always started with soups. Back in the first half of the 20th century, vegetable salad was served as a side dish to hot dishes. This order was maintained even in the first edition of the Book on Delicious and Healthy Food, published in 1939. The transfer of salads to the beginning of the lunch menu occurred only after the war, and this Soviet tradition has been preserved and consolidated in modern Russian cuisine.
The difficult post-war period dictated its own rules not only in our country, so dense salads with mayonnaise could be found in both European and American cuisine in the 1950s. However, unlike our cuisine, they did not stay there for long and gradually gave way to lighter dishes. The task of feeding the guests with hearty snacks remained relevant for domestic households for some time after the collapse of the USSR. But nowadays we can already afford to reconsider this tradition and diversify our New Year's table with other alternative salads, examples of which we have taken from the menus of restaurants in different regions of our country.
Chafan
Chafan salad is completely unknown to residents of Central Russia, but for residents of Yenisei Siberia it is a truly legendary dish. At the same time, there are no purely local northern ingredients, but the component of Korean cuisine is very strong - pickled carrots, beets, cabbage, and sometimes radish, supplemented with fried potatoes and meat.
— Many Siberians remember this bright, rich, crispy and umami salad from childhood and want to return to its taste, especially on holidays, — Mikhail Mikhailov, brand chef of Krasnoyarsk restaurants Sadko, Dze and Dzemi, told Izvestia. — Therefore, the New Year's table of Krasnoyarsk residents is absolutely impossible to imagine without a chaff, for us it will be even more important than olivier.
Chafan salad
In the homemade version of the chafan, which was prepared by our interlocutor's mother, the vegetables were pre-scalded with hot oil and seasoned with garlic, coriander and ready-made purchased Korean spices from sachets. Thin strips of pai potatoes and fried meat were added to them. Today, chafan is often served with dressings, including mayonnaise. This is also the case in the restaurants "Jo" and "Dzemi", since most of the guests prefer this option.
Those who are going to cook chafan at home should remember that in this salad it is important not to mix the ingredients, but to make sure that each of them is good in its own way and they can be eaten separately. The potatoes should be slightly crispy to preserve the overall texture of the salad. If you want to connect the dressing, then it can be made from mayonnaise with soy sauce and a small amount of crushed garlic and ground red pepper for piquancy.
Nicoise
Nicoise salad is a simple and balanced dish that came to us from the cuisine of the south of France. Its name refers to the city of Nice, where it is believed to have appeared for the first time. The appetizer, which combines sweet peppers, tomatoes, eggs, lettuce leaves, olive oil and tuna meat, has taken root well in domestic restaurants and is great for winter holidays.
"Nicoise can perfectly decorate a New Year's table and delight guests with a palette of bright colors, because it has red tomatoes, salad greens and shiny olives," says Angelina Rebrikova, chef of the Volgograd restaurant 12 kitchen&wine. — In our salad variation, we experimented with the cooking method, as well as the dressing, and replaced the classic tuna with local river walleye.
Nicoise salad with Volga walleye
Bulgarian pepper for nicoise was baked with herbs in Volgograd, a hard-boiled egg was replaced with poached eggs, potatoes were fried in local mustard oil, fresh crispy spinach was used instead of classic lettuce leaves, and honey from local apiaries was added to the dressing. The pike perch fillet was grilled with butter, adding creamy notes to the fish.
For those who plan to cook nicoise at home, our interlocutor advises using romaine, iceberg or spinach as a salad base. Tomatoes will need to be dense and fragrant, so cherry tomatoes will be one of the best options in winter. As a fish component, you can choose tuna (including canned), trout fillet or sea bass. The vegetables in the salad should be lightly baked, and olive oil with lemon should be used for light dressing.
Indigirka
Indigirka salad comes from the Republic of Sakha and got its name in honor of one of the largest rivers in Yakutia. In the middle of the 20th century, the dish was invented by the Soviet chef Innokenty Tarbakhov. The simplest, but very interesting snack consists of diced frozen fish mixed with onions, butter, salt and pepper. Fillets of muksun, chira or omul are usually used for cooking.
Indigirka salad from Yakut muksun
—Indigirka has a very rich and delicate fishy taste, and this dish is quite popular with us," says Pavel Ivolga, chef of the Irkutsk Kurbatov restaurant at the Rodina Grand Hotel & SPA Irkutsk. — We are preparing a salad from Yakut muksun. Fillets of freshly frozen fish are cut into cubes and decorated with omelet caviar, which adds sweet notes. The dish is served on a plate with a double bottom and nitrogen to keep it cold.
It is important to remember that the peculiarity of the indigirka is that the pieces of fish in it must remain frozen in stone, warns our expert. Therefore, a salad dish cannot be on the festive table all the time. The participants of the meal can take a few pieces and eat them at once, while they are cold, in order to feel the full charm of the treat. The remaining pieces should be immediately placed back in the refrigerator.
Mimosa
Mimosa salad also comes from the USSR. It was invented in the early 1970s and it spread very quickly in the home kitchen. The snack got its name due to the yellow color of the top, consisting of a layer of crumbled egg yolks, resembling a flowering mimosa.
—Mimosa was prepared from what was at hand: canned fish, eggs, cheese, mayonnaise," Takhir Tsakoev, the concept chef of the Moscow restaurant Kislovsky, explained to our publication. — A very simple recipe made the salad popular, so it was made not only in the spring, but also for the New Year. I wanted to preserve nostalgia, but at the same time breathe something modern into the dish.
Mimosa salad with eel
For the mimosa version in Kislovsky, the vegetables are not boiled, but baked. With this method, the natural sweetness of the products is better revealed and a light caramel note appears in the taste. Instead of mayonnaise, it uses homemade aioli with finely chopped pickled cucumbers, pickled dandelions and a small amount of unagi sauce as a dressing. Smoked eel became the main decoration, and red caviar adds a New Year's touch.
Our interlocutor advises letting the mimosa salad stand in a cool place for a couple of hours before serving. Then all its layers will be soaked, the textures will merge, and the taste will become truly juicy and whole. To add freshness to the salad in the winter season, it is better to add fresh cucumber, grated on a fine grater.
Not Olivier
The recipe for the traditional Olivier New Year's salad can become the basis for bold experiments, allowing you to create lighter versions of this festive snack, only vaguely reminiscent of the original.
— Our new salad "Not Olivier" repeats the classic pattern structurally and texturally, but is based on a combination of completely atypical ingredients — avocado with shrimp, — says Andrey Gryazev, brand chef of the Sochi Baran-Rapan restaurant. — Shrimps with a clean, sweet taste of the sea add lightness and freshness to the dish. Avocado adds creaminess, replacing heavy fatty ingredients, and fresh green peas give a crunch and brightness that we are used to in traditional olivier, but in a more lively and natural way.
Salad "Ne olivier" with shrimp, avocado and fresh green peas
As a result, the salad remains recognizable by its mood, but it becomes more suitable for those who, for various reasons, abandon the classic version of olivier. To make holiday snacks easier to digest, our expert advises not to overburden or overload them with sauces. The latter should only bind the ingredients, so some of the mayonnaise in them can be replaced with yogurt, sour cream or emulsions based on olive oil, citrus fruits and mustard. To maintain the right balance of textures, it is also important to add fresh vegetables, herbs, pickled or fermented elements — they will make the salad lighter and brighter in taste.
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