As for the Olivier… Sorry for butting in, but ham? Carrots? Why?
That's not to say that I'm trying to dissuade anyone from culinary experiments, no, far from that, but after several decades of cooking Olivier and eating Olivier (it's a very traditional New Year food here in Russia) I can wholeheartedly say that there's an easier and vegetarian-friendly method to grasp that particular Russian taste.
So, in equal proportions: — boiled potatoes; boil them in skin until soft (probe with a fork), cool then peel; — canned peas — but yes you may parboil fresh ones if you want; — hard-boiled eggs, preferably free-range; — salted cucumbers (definitely NOT marinated — if you can't lay your hands on salted cucumbers, well, get some herbs — dill is good, garlic too — boil and salt some water (it should taste like seawater), cover cucumbers and herbs in steaming hot salty water and leave for a day. Easy. Just don't try that with marinated ones, they ruin the taste).
The rest is easy. Cut everything into pea-sized cubes, place in a bowl, mix, leave for a day in a fridge (so that everything would blend together with salty cucumbers), add mayonnaise (or aioli) before serving, salt to taste. Personally I don't bother with homemade mayonnaise, I usually get a bottle of Japanese mayo off an Asian store here in Moscow — yes a bit unconventional, but it's very light and tastes great.
This is really basic and nice. You could add other ingredients but they are kind of superfluous. Treat any Russian to this recipe and you'll hear “it's definitely Olivier”.
]]>That leaves the question of relatives and friends — also easy if you're a proper Russian and thus you're great at simulating severe depression. The part with blood trails suggested by several commenters is quite easy.
If my life would depend on it, I guess I'd be willing to lose a few chunks of skin and flesh alongside a litre of blood — we're entering a very dark and uncanny territory here, but you'd rather be alive than picky about the details.
Coming from a family of doctors, I'm still under impression that it's not that hard to bribe your way into a morgue during wintertime, pick a relative lookalike, move it someplace remote and uninhabited, leave for a few days to be bitten by wildlife, make sure the face is unrecognizable, spray the corpse with your blood and personal effects, add some alcohol and make sure that it's a remote rural location so no one would bother to go into details examining the corpse — here's the passport, there's the blood, another case of sad drunken man lost in the woods and frozen to death.
Sorry if all of this sounds like a not-so-funny Dexter episode, but the less romantic it gets , the closer to reality it looks like.
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