[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":394},["ShallowReactive",2],{"recipe:olivier-salad":3,"recipe:country:russia":175},{"slug":4,"title":5,"nativeName":6,"romanized":7,"pronunciation":8,"countrySlug":9,"emoji":10,"summary":11,"intro":12,"story":13,"whyThis":14,"tips":19,"substitutions":26,"variations":39,"serveWith":49,"storage":51,"faq":52,"equipment":68,"baseServings":73,"prepMinutes":74,"cookMinutes":75,"restMinutes":76,"difficulty":77,"course":78,"diet":81,"mainIngredients":82,"ingredients":87,"instructions":132,"nutrition":155,"images":162,"keywords":166,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},"olivier-salad","Olivier Salad (Potato, Pea and Pickle Salad)","Салат Оливье","Salat Olivye","sah-LAT ah-lee-VYEH","russia","🥗","Boiled potato, carrot, egg and sausage diced small with peas and pickled cucumber, bound in mayonnaise and chilled — the salad no Russian New Year table is allowed to be without.","Olivier is a cold salad of everything cut to the same small dice: boiled potato, boiled carrot, hard-boiled egg, pickled cucumber, cooked sausage and green peas, all folded together with mayonnaise and left in the fridge to settle. Done well it is not the heavy, gluey thing its reputation suggests — the pickles cut through the mayonnaise, the egg makes it savory, and the peas keep bursting sweetly against everything else. Precision matters more than any ingredient: uniform 6 mm cubes make the salad, and rough chunks make it a mess. In Russia it is the fixed point of the New Year table, mixed in bowls big enough to last several days, and it is eaten as a starter, a side, and eventually straight from the fridge at two in the morning.","The salad is named after Lucien Olivier, a chef of French or Belgian background who ran the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow in the 1860s and 1870s, where a composed salad under his name became the house speciality. The original was expensive restaurant food — accounts of it mention grouse, crayfish tails, capers and other luxuries under a sauce Olivier reportedly kept secret. That exact recipe was never published by him and is genuinely lost; every version claiming to be the original is a reconstruction from second-hand descriptions, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than repeating one as fact.\n\nWhat survived is the structure: cooked ingredients cut small, bound in a rich sauce, served cold. Through the Soviet decades the luxuries were replaced with what shops actually had — potato instead of grouse, doktorskaya sausage instead of crayfish, tinned peas instead of capers, and industrial mayonnaise instead of a secret dressing. Outside Russia the same idea travelled and settled under other names, which is why so many countries have a version and call it Russian salad.\n\nThe salad then acquired a calendar. New Year is the biggest holiday in Russia, and Olivier is its compulsory dish, made in enormous quantities on 31 December and eaten for days afterwards. Households are firm about their own version — sausage or boiled chicken, apple or no apple, fresh cucumber or only pickled — and these preferences are inherited rather than chosen. There is no neutral way to make Olivier in Russia, which is a good sign that a dish has become part of a culture rather than just part of a cookbook.",[15,16,17,18],"Everything is cut to the same 6 mm dice, which is the difference between an elegant salad and a bowl of leftovers.","Potatoes and carrots are boiled in their skins and cooled fully before peeling, so they stay firm instead of turning to mash.","The mayonnaise is loosened with a spoonful of pickle brine and mustard, which stops the whole bowl tasting like a jar of dressing.","Built to be dressed shortly before serving, with clear notes on what to prepare a day ahead.",[20,21,22,23,24,25],"Boil the potatoes and carrots whole and unpeeled, then cool them completely — ideally overnight — before dicing. Warm potato absorbs mayonnaise and goes pasty.","Use waxy potatoes, never floury ones. Floury varieties disintegrate the moment you fold the salad.","Dice everything to the same size, roughly 6 mm. It sounds fussy and it is the single most noticeable quality marker in this salad.","Drain the pickles and peas properly and pat them dry. Stray liquid thins the dressing and pools at the bottom of the bowl within an hour.","Dress the salad at least an hour before serving but no more than a few hours, so the flavors merge while the vegetables still have bite.","Season at the end and taste twice — cold food needs more salt than warm food, and mayonnaise mutes it further.",[27,31,35],{"original":28,"swap":29,"note":30},"Doktorskaya sausage","Bologna, mortadella, cooked ham, or poached chicken breast","Many Russian households use boiled chicken instead of sausage and consider it the better version. Both are completely normal.",{"original":32,"swap":33,"note":34},"Mayonnaise","Half mayonnaise, half thick sour cream or Greek yogurt","Lighter and tangier, and increasingly common. It is a modern adjustment rather than the traditional binding, and the salad holds together slightly less well.",{"original":36,"swap":37,"note":38},"Pickled cucumbers","Cornichons, or half pickled and half fresh cucumber","Use brined pickles rather than sweet ones. Sweet gherkins turn the whole salad cloying and there is no fixing it afterwards.",[40,43,46],{"name":41,"description":42},"Olivier with chicken","Poached chicken breast in place of sausage, which many households insist is the proper way. Lighter and cleaner, and it lets the pickles come forward.",{"name":44,"description":45},"The restaurant reconstruction","An attempt at the nineteenth-century original using roast game or duck, crayfish tails or shrimp, and capers, with a richer homemade dressing. Nobody knows the real recipe, so treat it as an interpretation.",{"name":47,"description":48},"With apple","A diced tart apple folded in at the end, common in some families and firmly rejected by others. It adds sweetness and crunch and starts arguments.",[50],"The rest of a zakuski table: black bread, pickled mushrooms, herring under a fur coat, and something cold to drink.","Dressed Olivier keeps 2 days refrigerated, covered, and is at its best on the first day. It cannot be frozen — potato and mayonnaise both collapse on thawing. The practical approach for a party is to boil and dice everything a day ahead, keep the components in separate covered containers in the fridge, and fold in the mayonnaise an hour before guests arrive. If the salad has been sitting and looks dry, fold in a spoonful of mayonnaise loosened with pickle brine rather than plain mayonnaise.",[53,56,59,62,65],{"question":54,"answer":55},"What is the difference between Olivier and Russian salad?","They are the same dish under different names. Olivier is the Russian name, after the chef Lucien Olivier who created a version of it in 1860s Moscow, while Russian salad is what the exported version came to be called abroad. Local variants across Europe and Latin America adjust the ingredients, but the core of diced boiled vegetables, peas and mayonnaise is shared.",{"question":57,"answer":58},"Can I make Olivier the day before a party?","Partly, and it is the smart way to do it. Boil, cool and dice all the components a day ahead and keep them in separate covered containers in the fridge, then fold everything together with the mayonnaise about an hour before serving. A fully dressed salad made a day early goes watery as the vegetables release liquid into the dressing.",{"question":60,"answer":61},"Why is my Olivier watery?","Undrained ingredients are almost always the cause. Tinned peas and jarred pickles both carry a lot of liquid, so drain them well and pat them dry before dicing. The other culprit is dicing the potatoes while still warm, which makes them shed starch and moisture into the mayonnaise as they cool in the bowl.",{"question":63,"answer":64},"Do I have to use sausage?","No. Sausage is the standard Soviet-era version and the one most people grew up with, but poached chicken breast is a very common alternative and some households consider it superior. You can also leave the meat out entirely and add an extra egg and a little more pickle, which makes a vegetarian salad that still tastes like Olivier.",{"question":66,"answer":67},"What size should the dice be?","About 6 mm, and consistent across every ingredient including the egg and the sausage. This is not a stylistic detail: uniform small cubes let each spoonful contain everything at once, which is the whole design of the salad. Large or uneven pieces make it feel like a plate of leftovers bound with mayonnaise.",[69,70,71,72],"Large pot","Sharp knife","Large mixing bowl","Colander",8,40,30,60,"easy",[79,80],"appetizer","side",[],[83,84,85,86],"potato","peas","eggs","carrot",[88,93,96,100,104,106,108,113,116,120,123,127],{"ref":83,"qty":89,"unit":90,"name":91,"group":92},600,"g","waxy potatoes, unpeeled","To boil",{"ref":86,"qty":94,"unit":90,"name":95,"group":92},250,"carrots, unpeeled",{"ref":85,"qty":97,"unit":98,"name":99,"group":92},5,"piece","eggs, hard-boiled",{"qty":101,"unit":90,"name":102,"group":103},300,"doktorskaya sausage, bologna or cooked ham","For the salad",{"qty":94,"unit":90,"name":105,"group":103},"brined pickled cucumbers, drained",{"ref":84,"qty":94,"unit":90,"name":107,"group":103},"green peas, tinned and drained or cooked and cooled",{"ref":109,"qty":110,"unit":98,"name":111,"optional":112,"group":103},"onion",0.5,"small onion, very finely chopped",true,{"qty":101,"unit":90,"name":114,"group":115},"mayonnaise","For the dressing",{"qty":117,"unit":118,"name":119,"group":115},2,"tsp","Dijon or Russian mustard",{"qty":117,"unit":121,"name":122,"group":115},"tbsp","pickle brine from the jar",{"qty":124,"unit":125,"name":126,"group":115},null,"to taste","salt and freshly ground black pepper",{"ref":128,"qty":110,"unit":129,"name":130,"group":131},"dill","cup","dill, chopped","To finish",[133,138,142,145,148,151],{"title":134,"text":135,"timerSeconds":136,"tip":137},"Boil and cool the vegetables","Cook the unpeeled potatoes and carrots in salted water until a knife slides in with slight resistance, about 25 minutes for the potatoes and 20 for the carrots, then drain and leave them to cool completely — overnight in the fridge is ideal.",1500,"Slight resistance, not soft. They will be diced and folded, and any softer than this they turn to mash.",{"title":139,"text":140,"tip":141},"Dice everything the same size","Peel the cold potatoes, carrots and eggs, then cut them, along with the sausage and pickles, into even 6 mm cubes. Keep the piles separate on the board so you can see whether your dice is consistent.","This is the step that makes or breaks the salad. Take the extra ten minutes.",{"title":143,"text":144},"Dry the wet ingredients","Tip the drained peas and diced pickles onto a clean tea towel or paper towel and pat them thoroughly dry, then rinse the finely chopped onion under cold water and squeeze it out to take the raw bite off.",{"title":146,"text":147},"Mix the dressing","Stir the mayonnaise with the mustard and pickle brine until smooth and pourable, then season it with black pepper and a little salt. Taste it — it should be noticeably tangy on its own, because the potatoes will mute it.",{"title":149,"text":150},"Fold together","Combine all the diced ingredients and the peas in a large bowl, pour over the dressing, and fold gently with a spatula from the bottom up until everything is coated. Stop as soon as it is evenly mixed; over-stirring crushes the potato.",{"title":152,"text":153,"timerSeconds":154},"Chill, then serve","Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour so the flavors settle, then taste again and correct the salt, which cold food always needs more of. Scatter with dill and serve cold.",3600,{"calories":156,"protein":157,"carbs":158,"fat":159,"fiber":160,"sodium":161,"estimated":112},420,13,22,31,3,860,[163],{"src":164,"alt":165},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Folivier-salad\u002Fhero.svg","Bowl of Olivier salad with evenly diced potato, carrot, egg, peas and pickles in mayonnaise, topped with dill",[167,168,169,170,171,172],"olivier salad","russian salad","potato salad","new year","mayonnaise salad","zakuski","2026-08-20","dishroute-kitchen",{"items":176,"total":390,"page":391,"limit":392,"hasMore":393},[177,203,229,252,275,282,303,324,347,368],{"slug":178,"title":179,"nativeName":180,"romanized":181,"countrySlug":9,"baseServings":182,"prepMinutes":183,"cookMinutes":184,"difficulty":77,"course":185,"diet":187,"mainIngredients":188,"images":192,"keywords":196,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},"beef-stroganoff","Beef Stroganoff (Beef Strips in Mustard Sour 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lacy Russian blini pancakes with sour cream, jam and salted salmon on the side",[204,224,225,226,227,228,211],"russian pancakes","yeast pancakes","maslenitsa","smetana","buckwheat",{"slug":230,"title":231,"nativeName":232,"romanized":233,"countrySlug":9,"baseServings":73,"prepMinutes":208,"cookMinutes":234,"restMinutes":208,"difficulty":235,"course":236,"diet":237,"mainIngredients":239,"images":242,"keywords":246,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},"kulebyaka","Kulebyaka (Layered Salmon and Buckwheat Pie)","Кулебяка","Kulebyaka",55,"hard",[186],[238],"pescatarian",[240,228,241,85,216],"salmon","mushrooms",[243],{"src":244,"alt":245},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fkulebyaka\u002Fhero.svg","Sliced kulebyaka showing layers of salmon, buckwheat, mushrooms and egg inside a golden yeasted crust",[230,247,248,249,228,250,251],"coulibiac","salmon pie","russian pie","layered pie","yeast 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frosting",{"slug":4,"title":5,"nativeName":6,"romanized":7,"countrySlug":9,"baseServings":73,"prepMinutes":74,"cookMinutes":75,"restMinutes":76,"difficulty":77,"course":276,"diet":277,"mainIngredients":278,"images":279,"keywords":281,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},[79,80],[],[83,84,85,86],[280],{"src":164,"alt":165},[167,168,169,170,171,172],{"slug":283,"title":284,"nativeName":285,"romanized":286,"countrySlug":9,"region":287,"baseServings":288,"prepMinutes":258,"cookMinutes":183,"restMinutes":74,"difficulty":209,"course":289,"diet":290,"mainIngredients":291,"images":294,"keywords":298,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},"pelmeni","Pelmeni (Siberian Meat Dumplings)","Пельмени","Pel'meni","Siberia and the Urals",6,[186],[],[216,292,293,109,85],"ground-beef","ground-pork",[295],{"src":296,"alt":297},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fpelmeni\u002Fhero.svg","Bowl of boiled Siberian pelmeni dumplings glossy with butter, topped with sour cream, dill and black pepper",[283,299,300,301,302,227],"siberian dumplings","meat dumplings","russian dumplings","freezer food",{"slug":304,"title":305,"nativeName":306,"romanized":307,"countrySlug":9,"baseServings":308,"prepMinutes":259,"cookMinutes":234,"restMinutes":309,"difficulty":209,"course":310,"diet":312,"mainIngredients":313,"images":315,"keywords":319,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},"russian-pirozhki","Pirozhki (Russian Stuffed Yeast Buns)","Пирожки","Pirozhki",16,110,[311],"snack",[213,214],[216,314,85,191,109],"cabbage",[316],{"src":317,"alt":318},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Frussian-pirozhki\u002Fhero.svg","Tray of golden baked Russian pirozhki buns, one torn open to show the cabbage, egg and dill filling",[320,321,322,323,251,311],"pirozhki","russian buns","stuffed buns","cabbage filling",{"slug":325,"title":326,"nativeName":327,"romanized":328,"countrySlug":9,"region":329,"baseServings":182,"prepMinutes":330,"cookMinutes":331,"restMinutes":75,"difficulty":209,"course":332,"diet":333,"mainIngredients":334,"images":336,"keywords":340,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},"kotleta-pozharskaya","Pozharsky Cutlets (Breaded Minced Chicken Cutlets)","Пожарская котлета","Pozharskaya kotleta","Tver",35,25,[186],[],[335,191,217,85],"chicken",[337],{"src":338,"alt":339},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fkotleta-pozharskaya\u002Fhero.svg","Golden Pozharsky chicken cutlets with a spiky bread-cube crust, served with mashed potato and lemon",[341,342,343,344,345,346],"pozharsky cutlet","kotleta pozharskaya","chicken cutlet","russian cutlet","torzhok","breaded chicken",{"slug":348,"title":349,"nativeName":350,"romanized":351,"countrySlug":9,"baseServings":288,"prepMinutes":331,"cookMinutes":352,"difficulty":77,"course":353,"diet":355,"mainIngredients":356,"images":359,"keywords":363,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},"shchi","Shchi (Russian Cabbage and Root Vegetable Soup)","Щи","Shchi",150,[354],"soup",[],[357,358,83,86],"sauerkraut","beef-brisket",[360],{"src":361,"alt":362},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fshchi\u002Fhero.svg","Bowl of Russian shchi cabbage soup with beef and potato, topped with sour cream and chopped dill",[348,364,357,365,366,227,367],"cabbage soup","russian soup","beef broth","winter soup",{"slug":369,"title":370,"nativeName":371,"romanized":372,"countrySlug":9,"baseServings":288,"prepMinutes":75,"cookMinutes":76,"difficulty":209,"course":373,"diet":374,"mainIngredients":375,"images":381,"keywords":385,"publishedAt":173,"updatedAt":173,"authorSlug":174},"solyanka","Solyanka (Sour Soup with Smoked Meats and Olives)","Солянка","Solyanka",[354],[],[376,377,378,379,380],"kielbasa","ham","olives","capers","tomato-paste",[382],{"src":383,"alt":384},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fsolyanka\u002Fhero.svg","Bowl of Russian solyanka soup with smoked meats, olives, a lemon slice, sour cream and dill",[369,365,386,387,378,388,389],"smoked meats","pickled cucumber","sour soup","zakuska",10,1,24,false,1787360079162]