5 Soviet salads that modern housewives have undeservedly forgotten about

  • Mar 11, 2022
5 Soviet salads that modern housewives have undeservedly forgotten about

In the Soviet Union, culinary excellence was treated with particular trepidation. Meat, fish, cereals, pastries - everything had to be cooked at the highest level. However, most of all, the housewives loved salads, mainly for their simplicity and affordability. Novate.ru offers to recall some of the most popular of them, which turned out to be undeservedly forgotten. You may want to add them to your culinary piggy bank.

Salad 1: From canned crabs

A variant of the festive salad with crab meat. Photo: luckclub.ru
A variant of the festive salad with crab meat. / Photo: luckclub.ru
A variant of the festive salad with crab meat. / Photo: luckclub.ru

Crab salad is now considered one of the main ones on the festive table. It is prepared for the New Year, Birthday and other celebrations, because it evokes associations with something exquisite, perhaps even delicacy. However, our recipe and the one used in the USSR are different. Modern housewives are accustomed to adding crab sticks to the salad, while the Soviet ones used canned crabs, which were a hot commodity at that time. Canned food was bought long before the celebration, as they could be stored for more than one month, and it was a natural product, without any synthetic additives.

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In addition to canned crabs, the salad included one boiled turnip, one boiled carrot, three boiled potatoes, one fresh cucumber, one tomato, 100 grams of green peas, 100 grams of lettuce, four to five tablespoons of mayonnaise, one tablespoon of vegetable oil, two tablespoons vinegar.

The prepared vegetables were cut into small cubes, the tomato into circles. Dressing was made from oil, vinegar and a small amount of crab juice. The dish was assembled just before serving. The hostesses cut the lettuce, leaving a few leaves for decoration, put it in a salad bowl in a pile, and chopped vegetables were placed around them in separate “heaps”. In the center of the hill there should have been pieces of crabs, previously “marinated” in mayonnaise. At the end, the salad was slightly salted, poured with dressing and sent to the table.

In the modern interpretation of the dish, there are no tomatoes, lettuce, fresh cucumber and turnips, but there are boiled eggs, boiled rice and onions. The salad is seasoned with mayonnaise in advance, and then sent to the refrigerator, where it waits for its "finest hour".

Salad 2: With sour cream and egg

Low-calorie salad with cucumber, egg and sour cream. / Photo: povar.ru
Low-calorie salad with cucumber, egg and sour cream. / Photo: povar.ru

If crab salad was served exclusively at the festive table, then an appetizer with sour cream and an egg was a good addition to the everyday menu. The ingredients for the dish cost a penny, so people with any income could afford it. The salad often helped out the housewives when friends and relatives unexpectedly came to visit or it was necessary to diversify the table with something.

Among the components of the Soviet salad were lettuce, fresh cucumber, egg, half a glass of sauce made from sour cream and vinegar. Lettuce was washed, dried, cut and put in a bowl. The eggs were boiled for about 10 minutes to make them hard-boiled, and then crushed and mixed with a pre-made sour cream and vinegar sauce. The salad was dressed just before serving, after which it was wrapped around with slices of fresh cucumbers on all sides. For beauty sprinkled with finely chopped dill or parsley. Such a dish was considered an ideal addition to fish and meat dishes.

This recipe is a must if you are on a healthy diet or on a diet. The salad is not only easy to prepare, but also hearty and contains a minimum of calories.

Salad 3: From cod

It was believed that this salad was invented by the chef of one of the Soviet restaurants. / Photo: eat-me.ru
It was believed that this salad was invented by the chef of one of the Soviet restaurants. / Photo: eat-me.ru

In the Soviet Union, cod dishes were incredibly popular. In stores, you could find both frozen and canned fish, so housewives used the one that sounded better in a particular dish. And there were really a lot of dishes with this ingredient. The most popular of them is cod salad, which was considered festive. There is evidence that for the first time the salad was prepared in one of the restaurants in the USSR, and on the menu it was listed as "Northern". To make the appetizer look exquisite, the ingredients were neatly stacked in layers and served in beautiful vases.

For 200 grams of cod fillet, it was necessary to take 50 grams of celery, one apple, a bunch of radishes, one cucumber, 100 grams of lettuce leaves, half a glass of mayonnaise, one tablespoon of vinegar. All solid ingredients had to be cut into strips about three centimeters long, put in a bowl and set aside. Fresh chilled cod without skin and bones of the hostess was cut into pieces and doused with vinegar. Before serving the dish on the table, vegetables and fruits were lightly salted, mixed with two tablespoons of mayonnaise and placed on lettuce leaves, beautifully laid out on the bottom of a flat plate. They put fish on top and poured the remaining mayonnaise. The taste of the salad was very delicate, and it looked really festive - a real decoration of the table.

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Salad 4: Herring

Herring salad with potatoes and mustard dressing. / Photo: donatewales.org
Herring salad with potatoes and mustard dressing. / Photo: donatewales.org

Another popular fish in the USSR is herring. Another confirmation of this is the beloved salad “Herring under a fur coat”, without which the New Year in our country simply cannot come. However, Soviet housewives were not limited to this dish only - herring was present as the main ingredient in many appetizers and salads. Here is one of them.

For one medium-sized herring, two boiled potatoes, one apple, one pickle, one onion, one boiled beetroot, two eggs, three tablespoons of vegetable oil, two tablespoons of vinegar, one teaspoon mustard. All the ingredients were cleaned, the herring was cut into pieces, and the vegetables and apples were cut into thin slices. The sauce was made from the yolk of a hard-boiled egg mixed with salt, mustard, oil, and vinegar (should have been thick in consistency). All ingredients were mixed just before serving, if desired, decorated with grated egg white, chopped green onions, dill or parsley.

Do not think that this dish will be too boring and ordinary for a modern table. On the contrary, it has a very piquant taste, which is obtained thanks to the sauce, so adding a salad to your culinary piggy bank is definitely worth it.

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Salad 5: Beans

Bean and carrot salad. / Photo: gotovim-doma.ru
Bean and carrot salad. / Photo: gotovim-doma.ru

Even if you are cool about beans, this dish may well become one of your favorites. In the Soviet Union, it was prepared not only for the daily menu, but also for celebrations, believing that it was worthy of the festive table.

For one glass of beans, the hostess took three medium-sized carrots, 75 grams of celery, 200 grams of lettuce, two tablespoons of vegetable oil, mustard, vinegar, salt and sugar for sauce to taste.

The beans were first soaked, then boiled, put on a sieve and cooled. Carrots were also boiled and cut into small cubes or strips. Celery was chopped into strips, and lettuce was torn by hand. Then all the ingredients were mixed in one bowl and seasoned with a sauce made from mustard, sugar, salt, vegetable oil and vinegar. The finished dish was sometimes garnished with apple slices.

We are sure that these salads will take pride of place on your table, as they are distinguished by their availability, ease of preparation, health benefits and excellent taste. And here you will find a great recipe for liver salad
7 chicken liver dishes that will line up for
A source:
https://novate.ru/blogs/251121/61278/