Russian Salad
First soak six herrings in water for twenty-four hours; skin and take out all bones, and cut them up fine. To this add some anchovies and about half pound of smoked salmon (lobster may be used instead of salmon if desired), chopped fine. Cold roast turkey, chicken or veal may be added and is an improvement. Add to the above a liberal amount of pickled cucumbers, capers and olives; make a rich mayonnaise dressing and pour over all. Line a salad bowl with fresh lettuce leaves, fill in the salad and garnish with hard-boiled eggs. -Mrs. Charles A. Wilson, N. C.
A composed, mayonnaise-bound fish salad from the era when "Russian salad" meant almost any cold mixture dressed with mayonnaise. The instructions assume salt-cured fish and a cook who will taste before dressing.
- The herrings are salt herringSix fresh herrings would never need a twenty-four hour soak. These are hard-cured salt herring, sold in barrels or now in jars and vacuum packs; look for salt herring fillets at Eastern European or Scandinavian shops. If you use ready-made pickled or matjes herring instead, skip the soaking entirely and drain well.
- Soak cold, and change the waterDo the soaking in the refrigerator, not on the counter, and change the water two or three times. Taste a sliver before you commit: some cures are ready in eight hours, others need the full day.
- Anchovies"Some anchovies" in a book of this period meant salt-packed or brine-cured fillets, considerably saltier than modern oil-packed tins. Four to six fillets is a liberal amount against six herrings; rinse them and chop fine. Add them after the herring is desalted, and salt the mayonnaise only at the end if at all.
- Quantities to work withSix salt herring (about twelve fillets), 8 oz smoked salmon or picked lobster meat, and a cup or so of diced cold turkey, chicken or veal give roughly 2 lb of salad, enough for eight as a first course. About a cup of mayonnaise binds it without drowning it.
- Pickled cucumbersThese are dill or brine-fermented cucumbers, not sweet pickles; sweet gherkins will throw the whole balance. Dice them and squeeze out the brine so the mayonnaise does not thin.
- The mayonnaise"Rich" means egg-yolk mayonnaise made with plenty of oil. If you make it from scratch, use pasteurised eggs, since nothing in this salad is cooked afterward. A good bought mayonnaise loosened with lemon juice and a spoonful of the cucumber brine is entirely in keeping.
- Fold, then chillDress the fish and meat and let the salad stand covered in the refrigerator an hour so the flavours settle, but line the bowl with lettuce and add the egg garnish only at serving. Lettuce under a wet salad collapses within minutes.
- Cut sizes"Chopped fine" here means a small dice, not a paste. Keep the herring, salmon and poultry at about a quarter inch so each stays recognisable under the dressing.
Russian salad reached English and American cookbooks in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, part of the same vogue for things Russian that gave us service à la russe. The ancestor is generally traced to the Olivier salad of Moscow's Hermitage restaurant, a composed mayonnaise salad of meat, pickles and capers; as the idea travelled westward the name loosened until it covered almost any cold mixture bound with mayonnaise and moulded or heaped in a bowl. The version here, weighted toward salt herring, anchovy and smoked fish, sits closer to the Baltic and North German Heringssalat than to anything served in Moscow, and it shows how a contributor's recipe in a community-style cookbook could carry a fashionable name over familiar ingredients. Salt herring was cheap, keepable protein, and cold roast turkey, chicken or veal appears only as an optional improvement.