Russian Salad

Russian Salad (or Ensaladilla Rusa) is served at cafés and restaurants throughout Spain. It was also very popular in the Netherlands when I lived there. There are many different recipes for this wonderful salad and it´s a flexible recipe, so feel free to add, remove or replace ingredients as you wish.

For me, though, an absolutely “must-have” ingredient is canned tuna, and lots of it! Luckily, you can buy it almost anywhere in Spain, and in large tins too. The Spanish do love their tuna!

Ingredients (serves 6-8  as a side-dish or as tapas)

• 1 kg potatoes, peeled, boiled and diced
• 0.5 kg carrots, peeled, blanched and diced
• 350 g tin green beans, sliced into 1.5 cm pieces
• 2 eggs (hard-boiled)
• 500 g tin tuna (in oil or brine)
• 0.25 kg frozen peas, defrosted
• half a large spring onion, sliced and diced
• 3 – 4 tbsp mayonnaise
• 0.5 tsp paprika (optional)

Method

1. Peel the potatoes and add them to a pot of cold water, together with a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil and cook (covered) until just tender (about 10 minutes). Don´t over-boil, or you´ll finish up with tuna mash! Drain and put aside to cool.
2. Peel the carrots and add them to a pot of cold water. Bring to the boil and cook for 3 minutes. Drain and put to one side.
3. If you have substituted tinned beans with fresh one, boil until just soft (but not mushy). Otherwise open the tin, drain and slice.
4. Hard-boil the eggs (about 10 minutes) then drain and put aside.
5. Drain the tuna and flake it with a fork.
6. When cool, chop all of the cooked ingredients and place in a large mixing bowl.
7. Add the tinned beans, peas, eggs, onion and tuna flakes, then mix well.
8. Add seasoning and paprika to your taste and mix again. This is a large batch, so you may need to do this a few times, but don´t add too much at a time.

This Russian salad recipe is for a moist, but chunky salad. If you prefer a smoother recipe, chop the ingredients smaller and add a little more mayonnaise.

This salad goes well with cold meat,  or can be used (as in Spain) as a tapas. Enjoy!

Check out our other tapas recipes.