The Russian salad is one of the great classics of Spanish cuisine although, as we know, it has very little Russian. We owe its creation to Belgian chef Lucien Olivierwho conceived this evolution of the salad in tsarist Russia in the 19th century, which, as we have also told you sometimes, has very little of what our Russian salad has today.
Nowadays, we have normalized that this homemade and typical bar counter recipe requires little more than potato, carrot, egg and mayonnaise. Then it can be illustrated with more or less taste, the salads where we distract certain seafood working well.
This is the case of prawns, prawns or whatever our budget allows, since there are hoteliers, such as Juanjo Lopezin La Tasquita de Enfrente, which makes a salad with lobster.
It also can tune to taste by adding pickles, which is also common. There are options for all budgets and audiences, from pickles and piparras to olives or capers.
Finally, it is very common for us to top the Russian salad with different canned fish, taking the most common prize for canned tuna. They can be simple loins or it can be the belly, but one way or another it usually ends up appearing.
Martín Berasategui’s trick to improve the Russian salad
This is precisely where the trick comes in. Martin Berasategui to have a sweeter and more flavorful Russian salad without changing the usual ingredients. As he explained in one of the recipes he made with David de Jorge in the program Robin Foodissued by EITB, the chef with the most Michelin stars in Spain is clear that the order alters the product.
For this reason, he recommends that in the Russian salad he prefers slightly modify the tuna contest, contrary to what is usually done. In most homes, crumbled tuna is usually distributed along with the rest of the solid ingredients.
What the San Sebastian chef prefers to do is mix the tuna with the mayonnaisewhere you also add some chopped anchovies and a little mayonnaise, which will act together as a sauce to wrap the rest of the ingredients.
In this way he achieves two successes. The first is that the distribution of the tuna is much more uniform, reaching all corners of the salad. On the other hand, it increases the flavor of the salad thanks to these four elements, which bring together fat, salt and a pinch of acidity, which enhance the flavor of the preparation.
Images | Facebook Martín Berasategui
In DAP | Salad recipes
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