Quick Russian Salad Recipe

Healthy Russian Salad Recipe

Let’s make some delicious and refreshing Russian salad, a colourful salad that originated in Russia, but soon became popular all over the world, including India.

This salad, which is basically a fruit and vegetable salad with a mayonnaise dressing, is also called Olivier salad after the chef who created it in Moscow. The original salad had boiled egg and also ham added to it. What’s great about this salad is that it’s not just very, very tasty, but it’s very, very simple to make as well.

Unlike in the case of my Greek Pasta Salad, another amazingly tasty and refreshing salad, no pasta is used in this salad. But the star ingredient in this Indian version of Russian salad, is pineapple!

Ingredients

2 medium size carrots (150g)

2 medium size potatoes (200g)

½ large cucumber (150g)

½ cup green peas

1 litre water

1 tsp + ½ tsp salt

1 apple

½ medium size pineapple

½ cup mayonnaise, approx.

2 tbsp fresh cream

6 tbsp yogurt

2 tsp powdered sugar

½ tsp white pepper

Procedure

1. Transfer the yogurt to a strainer and let the water from it drain away for around half an hour in the fridge. This is to keep the hung curd cold.
2. Peel and dice the carrots.
3. Peel and dice the potatoes. Put the chopped pieces in a bowl of water to prevent them from changing colour till you’re ready to use them.
4. Peel the cucumber and slice it lengthwise into two pieces. Cut away the central core with the seeds and discard it. Dice the cucumber too into bite-size pieces.
5. Set around 1 litre of water to boil in a vessel. Add 1 tsp salt to the water. When it comes to a boil, add the chopped carrots and green peas. Cook these vegetables for around 4 to 5 minutes or till they’re done. Remove them to a colander placed over a vessel for collecting any water that drains away.
6. In the same water, cook the chopped potatoes for around 5 minutes or till they’re fork tender. Remove these too to the colander.
7. Let these cooked vegetables cool completely to room temperature, and then move them to the fridge for around 20 minutes to cool them some more.
8. Dice the pineapple and the apple. You could peel the apple first if you want.
9. In a large bowl, prepare a mayonnaise-based dressing by mixing the mayonnaise with the milk cream and the hung curd.
10. Add the chopped vegetables and fruits to the bowl along with the powdered sugar, pepper powder, and salt, and mix all of this well with the dressing.
11. Taste the salad and add more sugar, salt, or pepper if necessary.
12. Add some more mayonnaise to the salad if you feel the quantity of the dressing needs to be increased.
13. Chill the salad in the fridge for around an hour before serving it.

Enjoy!