RUSSIAN SALAD

Originally developed in Moscow in 1863 by a chef call Olivier, his so-called Russian Salad is nothing like ours. Whereas his featured grouse and other expensive game, ours contains no meat at all. And where his was based around diced potatoes, ours is based on diced beetroot. Ours has a lovely purple colour derived from the beetroot and other purple ingredients. Olivier's, mositened by mayonnaise is cream in colour. The beauty of the eugenius' version is not only the taste but teh colour and combination of textures. You get tghe crunch of the corn, combined with the squish of the peas, the slide of the hard-boiled egg, and the snap of celery and raw carrot. The key in making this salad as in all salads is SALAD TOPOLOGY. This is the subject for a separate post (which will come later) but in essence it means that a salad needs to be comprised of elements all of which are roughly the same size and shape. Corn and peas go together for instance, but not corn and julienned carrot, so you would never put corn in a coleslaw, and if you were to combine corn with peas and carrot therefore, the carrot needs to be cubed. By teh same token, if you are making a coleslaw and want to put beetroot in it then slice the beetroot into the same size sticks as your carrot or cabbage.
So basically your Russian salad comprises small balls (corn, peas) and small cubes (carrot, cucumber, potato, beetroot, spring onions) roughly in equal proportions. The dressing melds the ingredients into a homogeneous whole. Ill give away the dressing secrets in my next blog
eugenius