Tag: Salad

Oldies But Goodies: Spicy Corn and Chile Salad

Oldies But Goodies: Spicy Corn and Chile Salad

Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.” Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipe is for Spicy Corn and Chile Salad. It’s just the thing to warm up those cold winter days.  You…

Beet, Walnut and Arugula Salad with a Schmear of Goat Cheese

Beet, Walnut and Arugula Salad with a Schmear of Goat Cheese

There is a surprise in every delicious bite of this unusual salad! The big surprise here is a big schmear of softened goat cheese and cream cheese hiding under this pretty pile of greens and golden beets.  More good news! There can be a real…

Oldies But Goodies: Spicy Corn and Chile Salad

Oldies But Goodies: Spicy Corn and Chile Salad

Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.” Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipe is for a Spicy Corn and Chile Salad . You’ll find it here.

You don’t want to miss this great recipe…again.

Want to dive deeper into our recipe archive? Just click one of the categories at the top of this page or use the category search drop down menu on the right side of this page.

And…here is a link to Blue Cayenne’s main page: Blue Cayenne.. If you are in the mood to cook (or eat!), we hope you will take a moment to look at the many excellent recipes we have featured.

Oldies But Goodies:  Pickled Beet and Lentil Salad With Spinach and Feta

Oldies But Goodies: Pickled Beet and Lentil Salad With Spinach and Feta

Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.”Here is a recipe for a beautiful Beet and Lentil Salad: Pickled Beet Salad With Lentils and Feta. You don’t want to miss this great…

The Eyes Have It: Peach and Raspberry Salad With Peach Vinaigrette

The Eyes Have It: Peach and Raspberry Salad With Peach Vinaigrette

Summer salads are a “thing” at my house. Cool and light after a hot day, a salad is the perfect way to wind down the day and ease into a cool evening with a good book and a sweet pup.     Here is a…

Oldies But Goodies: Russian Salad

Oldies But Goodies: Russian Salad

Every month Blue Cayenne features one post from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. Here is a Russian Salad recipe.

You don’t want to miss this great recipe…again.

Want to dive deeper into our recipe archive?  Just click one of the categories at the bottom of this page or use the category search drop down menu on the right side of this page.

Here is the link to the recipe: Russian Salad.

And…here is a link to Blue Cayenne’s main page: Blue Cayenne Food and Photography Blog. If you are in the mood to cook (or eat!), we hope you will take a moment to look at the many excellent recipes we have to offer. 

 

 

 

A Couple of Swells: A Poppy Seed Vinaigrette and A Garlicky Vinaigrette

A Couple of Swells: A Poppy Seed Vinaigrette and A Garlicky Vinaigrette

  A couple of swells… Are you trying to place that expression? It’s from the classic 1948 MGM musical Easter Parade. It was the highest grossing MGM movie in the 1940s–a real crowd please, apparently.  Here is the link: Astaire and Garland: A Couple of Swells. Aah.…

Pasta Salad With Feta and Herbs

Pasta Salad With Feta and Herbs

When I was twenty-two and had my own kitchen for the first time, I knew absolutely nothing about cooking. Nothing. So…I bought my first cookbook–a used copy of the 1963 edition of The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook. The book’s provenance is interesting. The name Sugar Bardy…

Sweet Memories and Russian Salad

Sweet Memories and Russian Salad

Memories.

This coronavirus crisis has given me a lot of time to explore my food (and other) memories. I imagine you have done a lot of that, too.

On a lazy afternoon recently, I asked myself where I would most like to revisit (and dine) if I had unlimited options. I settled upon a world trip that would take me back to Cairo (Egypt), Berenty Lemur Preserve ( Madagascar),  Srinagar (Kashmir, India), Yangon (Myanmar), the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)  and Istanbul (Turkey). Whew! That would be some wonderful itinerary! And, just think of the food.

Considering that itinerary, one of my fondest food memories is the restaurant in a magical hotel in the heart of Istanbul, the Pera Palas. Built in the 1892, the hotel served as the eastern terminus for travelers on the Orient Express. Luminaries like Ataturk, Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway slept there. I wrote about the hotel in 2015 when I posted a baklava recipe. You can find the post here if you would like to read more about the hotel. (The baklava recipe is pretty spectacular, too.) Clearly, I was pining for the Russian salad even then. Now, five years later, I’ve tweaked  a recipe that is pretty spot on for the Pera Palas’ dish-of-my-dreams.

 

This salad is a traditional New Year’s dish for Russians. It’s origins can be traced back to a Belgian chef, Lucien Olivier, who operated a popular restaurant in Moscow in the 19th Century. That restaurant, The Hermitage, became the place to dine and enjoy the house’s signature salad, aptly named the Olivier salad.  Olivier struggled to keep the salad recipe secret. His salad featured black caviar, capers, game hens and potatoes as key ingredients and was dressed in a creamy “Olivier dressing.” Recreating the recipe for the dressing became an obsession for restaurant patrons. Reportedly, Olivier’s recipe was stolen by his sous chef who was able to analyze Olivier’s mise en place one day when the chef stepped away and left his personal kitchen (and recipe) vulnerable. Olivier’s supporters, however, always claimed that something was missing in the stolen version. Some said it was Kabul sauce in the dressing. Kabul sauce. Hmmm.

Over the years, the recipe has been recreated in restaurants and households across the world. The Turkish version is called Rus salatsi. That is what we enjoyed at the cavernous Pera Palas dinning room those many years ago.

Here’s the recipe adjusted to fit my memories. I have to confess, though, that Instacart let me down. They couldn’t find that Kabul sauce. Damn.

 

Russian Salad
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Ingredients

  • 1 pound potatoes
  • 2 large carrots
  • 3 large eggs (hard-boiled with the potatoes and peas)
  • 1/2 C. blanched green peas (fresh or frozen, stay away from canned)
  • 1 large red beet
  • 2 t. salt
  • 1 medium red onion (diced)
  • 1/4 to 1/2 C. chopped kosher dill pickles
  • Fresh Dill (chopped and to your taste)
  • 1/2 C. mayonnaise
  • Paprika or cayenne pepper (for garnish)
  • Extra chopped fresh dill (for garnish)

Instructions

  1. In a large pot of boiling water, boil potatoes, carrots and eggs together with 1 teaspoon of salt. The potatoes and carrots don't have to be peeled at this stage. This will take about 15 minutes--a bit more for the potatoes. (Be careful not to over boil the potatoes. You want the potato cubes in your salad to hold their shape.) Set aside to cool so that you can handle the vegetables and eggs to peel. (I speeded up the cooling by putting my boiled vegetables in a bowl of iced water.)
  2. Cook (or defrost) the peas in the same water that you used for the carrots, eggs and potatoes. Remove from hot water, drain and set aside. Be careful not to overcook the peas. You want them to be firm and beautiful in the salad presentation.
  3. Wrap a large red beet in foil and bake in the oven at 350 degrees until the beet is easy to slice. This will take about 45 minutes. Use a paring knife to stick into the beet to be sure it is baked through.
  4. Peel the cooled hard boiled eggs. Peel the potatoes and the carrots. Cut everything into small cubes. Set aside.
  5. Peel the cooled red beet. Slice into thin slices. Set aside.
  6. Using a large mixing bowl, mix potatoes, carrots, eggs, peas, onion, chopped dill pickles, chopped and fresh dill together. Add the mayonnaise and mix well. Season with salt to your taste.
  7. Arrange the salad decoratively on serving plates or serve in a large bowl. I used the beets as the foundation for the salad by arranging the beets in a pattern on the plate and tucking them tightly around the base of the salad. If I were to serve this salad in a large bowl, I would boil an extra egg and use egg slices and beet slices to decorate the bowl of salad. Alternatively, you can mix the beets into your salad but you will have a less attractive pink-colored salad.
  8. I sprinkled a bit of paprika on the finished dish, but I think a sprinkle of cayenne pepper would be great too. I scattered more chopped fresh dill on top of the salad and I decorated the final dish with a sprig of dill.

Nutrition

Calories

1240 cal

Fat

84 g

Carbs

109 g

Protein

17 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2
230

https://bluecayenne.com/russian-salad

 

I looked at a lot of different Russian salad recipes for inspiration. Most recently, I was inspired by this recipe: Ensalada Rusa.

Looking for a Rainbow Right Now? Beet Salad

Looking for a Rainbow Right Now? Beet Salad

Need a little pick-me-up? This stunning beet salad will make you smile to the very last bite. The slightly-sweet vinaigrette dressing is so good that you will want to experiment with it on other dishes, too. Another bonus, you can easily make this salad your…