Olivye s Kolbasoy

Name: Olivye s Kolbasoy
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 25 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 300g Doktorskaya Kolbasa, cut in 8mm cubes; 4 medium potatoes, boiled in their skins and cooled; 2 medium carrots, boiled and cooled; 4 eggs, hard-boiled and cooled; 4 pickled cucumbers (gherkins), diced; 200g canned green peas, drained; 1 small onion, finely diced; 200g mayonnaise (full-fat, ideally Provansal brand or similar); Salt and black pepper

Recipes with Doktorskaya Kolbasa

The Soviet New Year's salad. Every December 31, across eleven time zones and beyond, families make Olivier in vast bowls and leave it in the refrigerator overnight. The base is diced Doktorskaya Kolbasa, boiled potatoes, carrots, pickled cucumbers, canned peas, hard-boiled eggs, all bound in mayonnaise. The French chef Lucien Olivier invented a distant ancestor of this at the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow in the 1860s. What Soviet cooks made with it bears little resemblance to the original, but it became the dish that marks the passage from one year to the next.

Prep Time

30 min

Cook Time

25 min

Servings

Difficulty

Easy

Ingredients

300g Doktorskaya Kolbasa, cut in 8mm cubes
4 medium potatoes, boiled in their skins and cooled
2 medium carrots, boiled and cooled
4 eggs, hard-boiled and cooled
4 pickled cucumbers (gherkins), diced
200g canned green peas, drained
1 small onion, finely diced
200g mayonnaise (full-fat, ideally Provansal brand or similar)
Salt and black pepper

Steps

Peel and dice the cooled potatoes and carrots into 8mm cubes. Peel and dice the hard-boiled eggs similarly.

Combine the sausage, potatoes, carrots, eggs, pickled cucumbers, peas, and onion in a large bowl. Toss gently to mix.

Add the mayonnaise and fold through until everything is evenly coated. Season with salt and black pepper.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight. The salad needs time to bind and the flavors to develop.

Serve cold, mounded in a bowl or plated flat and decorated with a few peas or egg slices on top.

Tips

The quality of the mayonnaise matters. Provansalsky mayonnaise, the Soviet standard, has a neutral, egg-forward flavor that lets the other ingredients come through. Western-style mayonnaise often has too much acidity. Do not use light or low-fat versions: the texture is wrong. The salad should be made the day before serving.