Russian Vegetable Salad Deluxe
This hearty, bright-tasting salad is an adaptation of a Russian dish that I first discovered in "The Way We Cook: Recipes from the New American Kitchen," by Sheryl Julian and Julie Riven (Houghton Mifflin, 2003). I make it with a number of additions and serve it with "borodinsky," a dense rye bread from Russia.
I think of this preparation whenever someone tells me they don’t know how to “eat local” in the winter. It makes excellent use of late-winter root vegetables and is satisfying enough to be a main course, with or without the ham.
Servings: 6
Ingredients:
Salad:
6 medium beets (larger than golf balls, smaller than hard balls)
4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into quarters
1/2 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
2 large Organic Valley eggs, hard-cooked and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup finely diced Organic Prairie Hardwood Smoked Ham (optional)
2 medium-size garlic dill pickles, chopped
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley
Dressing:
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Organic Valley Sour Cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/8 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon caraway seeds, pulverized with mortar and pestle or in coffee grinder
3 tablespoons safflower oil
salt and pepper to taste
Also:
Dark rye bread, cut into small slices
Organic Valley European Style Cultured Butter, softened
Instructions:
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place unpeeled beets in small roasting pan; add enough water to come 1/2 inch up sides of pan. Cover tightly with foil and bake until tender when pierced with fork, 60 minutes or longer. Uncover beets and let them cool down.
Meanwhile, place potatoes and carrots in a steamer basket and steam them in a covered saucepan over medium heat until barely tender, about 10 minutes. Remove cover and let them cool down.
Make dressing by whisking cider vinegar, sour cream, mayonnaise, sugar, and caraway in large bowl. Whisk in safflower oil a little at a time. Season generously with salt and pepper.
When vegetables are cool, remove the peels from the beets and potatoes. Cut beets, potatoes, and carrots into 1/2-inch pieces. Add them to the dressing in the bowl with green onions, eggs, ham, pickles, and parsley. Gently fold ingredients together and season with salt and pepper to taste. Chill until ready to serve.
Mound the salad on a colorful platter. Butter the bread slices generously. Surround the salad with buttered bread.
Copyright by Terese Allen
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