No. 2645

Russian Salad

Salade Russe

Lay in a salad bowl two ounces of celeriac cut in fine Julienne, four ounces of boiled and cold potatoes, cut in quarter-inch squares, four ounces of artichoke bottoms, each one divided into sixteen pieces, four ounces of well-pared roast sirloin of beef, cut in quarter-inch squares, four ounces of string-beans cut lozenge-shaped, two ounces each of chicken, ham and tongue cut into three-sixteenths of an inch squares; season with salt, pepper and vinegar. Cover the whole with a highly seasoned mayonnaise sauce (No. 606), in which some mustard in mixed, and garnish all around the outer edge with cucumbers and gherkins cut in fine slices, alternating them, and having one overlapping the other, then toward the center decorate with another row of sliced truffles, inside of these a row of beetroot, inside a row of anchovies and capers, and in the center lay a fine lettuce heart. There may be arranged outside of the cucumbers, and upright against the salad bowl, a row of thin slices of sausage.

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For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer's Russian salad is an assembly job rather than a cooking one: everything goes in cooked and cold, and the whole point is uniform dice and a mayonnaise stiff enough to hold the garnish rings in place. The weights are given in ounces and add up to about a pound and a half of solids.

The hinge: everything cold and dryEach component must be fully cooled and blotted before it meets the mayonnaise. Warm potato or damp beans will thin the sauce and the concentric rings of garnish will slide.
YieldRoughly 24 oz of diced solids plus sauce, which serves six to eight as a first course or eight to ten on a buffet.
CeleriacTwo ounces cut in fine julienne. Ranhofer gives no instruction to cook it, so it appears to go in raw, which is bracing and slightly woody; a 60-second blanch and quick chill softens the rasp without turning it limp.
Artichoke bottomsFresh trimmed bottoms are a half-hour job. Canned or frozen artichoke hearts, drained and patted dry, give the same four ounces; quarter and then quarter again to approximate sixteen pieces each.
Tongue, ham and chickenCooked beef tongue is a deli item in many cities and can be ordered from a butcher; if it is unavailable, the salad survives on the sirloin, ham and chicken. "Well-pared" roast sirloin means all fat, gristle and grey outer meat cut away before dicing.
Lozenge-shaped beansCut the beans on a sharp diagonal into diamonds about half an inch long, so they read as a shape among the cubes rather than as strings.
The mayonnaise (No. 606)Ranhofer refers to his own mayonnaise recipe; the salad calls for it highly seasoned with mustard mixed in. Use a thick commercial or homemade mayonnaise loosened only with the mustard and a little vinegar; if it runs, the garnish will not sit.
Truffles, anchovies, capersThe decoration is the dish. Sliced black truffle is now a luxury purchase, and a rank of thinly sliced black olive or a preserved-truffle product stands in without pretending to be the same thing. Rinse salted capers and drain the anchovies well.
AssemblySeason and dress the diced mixture, mound it domed in the bowl, smooth the surface with a spatula, then lay the rings from the outside in so the last thing placed is the lettuce heart. Chill 30 minutes before serving, no longer, or the mayonnaise skins.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of the restaurant's repertoire, and its salad chapter reflects the French professional kitchen's fondness for cold cooked components cut to size and arranged in rings. The name salade russe is generally traced to Franco-Russian court cookery of the mid-nineteenth century, when French chefs worked in St Petersburg and Russian dishes and service styles travelled back to Paris; the related Russian dish now known as Olivier salad is likewise attributed to a chef of French or Belgian origin working in Moscow. What makes Ranhofer's version distinctly restaurant food is the labour: seven cooked items plus the celeriac, reduced to several different sizes and shapes of cut, then four concentric borders of garnish, all of it done by a brigade for a dish that would be spooned apart in a moment. That the very next entry in the book is a Lenten version, with the meats swapped out, shows how firmly such salads sat in the calendar of formal American dining.