Pickly Russian potato salad (salat olivye)
Servings: 4
This is a riff on one of my favourite Soviet salads: salat olivye. I’ve made this one vegetarian to rope in more players, but you could add cubed cold cuts or leftover roast to bulk it out too. You could use frozen peas here, boiled for 2 minutes then refreshed with cold water to keep them sweet and vibrant. My pick for pickle here is a tinned dill pickle (Eskal is the most reliable brand balance-wise and you’ll find it at most supermarkets with a kosher section).
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Ingredients
- 500 g waxy potatoes
- 1 can/jar (400g) peas
- 1 can dill pickles (560g) cubed
- 3 medium carrots
- ½ bunch fresh dill finely chopped (leaving some fronds for garnish)
- 6 eggs
- ½ – 1 cup whole egg mayo depending on your preference
- Good pinch of ground white pepper
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, pop the carrots and potatoes into well-salted cold water, then bring to the boil and simmer until fork tender. Medium carrots will take around 15 minutes while spuds are more like 20-25. Allow to cool enough to touch, then peel the spuds with your hands (it’s not necessary to peel the carrots, but if you’d prefer it, the skin will come straight off with some horizontal agitation). Dice both carrots and potatoes with a nice sharp knife.
- Meanwhile, bring a smaller saucepan’s worth of water to the boil, then drop the heat down to a simmer and add the eggs from as close to the water as possible from hot for 10 minutes to hard-boil. Run under cold water until the water and eggs are cool, then peel and dice.
- Combine everything together, adding the mayonnaise a couple of heaped tablespoons at a time to incorporate until you’re happy with the level of creaminess. Sprinkle in white pepper and taste for seasoning in general.
