When our staff gets together for a social event, out toddler teacher (who is from Russia) brings this amazing salad that is so good I could eat the whole bowl in one sitting. I’ve asked her a couple of times what it is and how to make it, but she cleverly avoids my question by smiling secretively and saying, “It’s Russian salad. Just vegetables and dressing.”
Well, I knew that, but what is in that dressing??? The last time I had it, I went home and googled it. It’s called Salad Olivier and can be made many ways, but basically it’s a potato-heavy, multi-vegetable salad with a mayonnaise-based dressing. (One thing that I have learned from this experience is that I can never spell mayonnaise correctly on the first try.)
Zoya’s has finely diced potato, carrot, cucumber and peas for certain. There may have been other things, but I’ll need to do more analyzing. Other recipes include chopped hard-boiled egg, some kind of chopped meat, and diced ‘kosher dill pickle – the kind in salt brine, not vinegar’. (I can’t find that.) It’s the cucumbers that make this for me – I love the crunch!
I tried one batch of dressing with mayo, some vinegar and salt and pepper. When I told Zoya about it, she said, “No vinegar – just mayonnaise and sour cream.” Aha! I tried that for the next batch and it was not as good.
So here’s the deal. Zoya isn’t going to cough up her secret recipe, and I need help. My dressing is a little …… um, non-super-delicious. Please scout out somebody who knows how to make this and report back to me with information. I don’t have a picture of my finished batches, and I also know that any Royuk will be no help to me since they have severe mayo aversions. Brad, you can tell us a joke instead if you like.