#silverova showing off with her cooking

[emiliasilverova]

Салат « Янус » (The Janus Salad)

(Or: a Russian Englishman’s twist on the Romanov-era Olivier Salad)

007 Fest 2022, Scavenger Hunt item no. 52: “Design a meal or dish of food representing a Bond character. Explain your logic.”

In the days when Janus used to travel all around Russia in his personal armoured train, the question of food always was a critical one. Of course, the on-board kitchen was well-stocked with quality tins, but one did not simply live on a diet of tinned food—especially when one was the immensely rich Janus.

Therefore, some of the Janus Syndicate’s enforcers were specially assigned to catering. They ordered dishes to the greatest chefs in all of Saint Petersburg and brought them back to base (not unlike a private Uber Eats…); they did the grocery shopping at the historical Gostiniy Dvor department store; they even procured rare and/or exotic ingredients from abroad. None of them complained—as long as they weren’t caught red-handed nabbing some of this exceptional food, the job certainly had its advantages.

Janus, as for him, didn’t complain either. As much as he despised his old friend James in those days, he had very much adopted the latter’s love for good, expensive cuisine for himself. While the local restaurateurs never saw him in person, he paid them so generously they came to look forward to the tough-looking henchman’s next visit. There were worse arrangements, especially in 1990s Russia.

What Janus also loved was history—above all else, Romanov history. In another life, he would have certainly been the dashing Count Vronskiy in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Or, at the very least, a young, ambitious Don Cossack officer, relentlessly gaining power in the tsar’s court through intrigue and connections. But alas, he was born a century too late for that to ever happen. His consolation was to devour all the books he could find on the subject… and infiltrating the young Russian Federation’s politics to steer them away from Communism as much as he could.

It was while reading one of his history books that one day, Janus stumbled upon the story of Belgian chef Lucien Olivier and of his most famous creation—Olivier salad. Like every Russian, Janus knew the Soviet, cheapened-down variation of it, also known as Russian potato salad. He was very surprised to find out that the original was, in fact, very posh. Depending on the versions, it could include such ingredients as hazel grouse, crayfish tails, or even black caviar.

Intrigued, Janus kept searching about this historical salad. Chef Olivier had clung jealously to his recipe all the way to the grave, but fortunately some of his contemporaries had noted down their best approximations. The oldest possible source Janus could find was an 1894 article from the long-defunct magazine ‘Our Food’. For what he had in mind, it was a very good base.

So, one day, he summoned one of his caterers and asked for the recipe to be recreated, albeit with a few alterations of his own. The original recipe was forever lost after all, so no need for complete authenticity. Instead of hazel grouse, he wanted partridge—a very acceptable replacement, according to the 1894 article. If he did live the Cossack life, he’d probably have hunted it himself… but the truth was, partridge had been his favourite game meat ever since James made him try some.

Instead of crayfish, he wanted the sweeter, softer scampi. How English of him, one might say. Instead of meat jelly, he wanted the most buttery, decadent beluga caviar—hopefully not from Valentin Zukovsky's Azerbaijani farm, though. He wanted quail eggs, too. And for a slightly dark, smoked edge, he wanted French duck magret. Again, James’ influence on him might be stronger than he’d ever admit…

Lastly, there was the question of the most mysterious ingredient of them all—what the article called ‘Kabul’ sauce. Back in the day, it was a condiment made by the British firm Crosse & Blackwell, but it unsurprisingly had been discontinued eons prior. The replacement, Janus decided, would be a mixture of good old Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce. Russia had borders with China, Korea and Japan after all. Slightly spicy, with a umami kick to it… that resembled enough the descriptions he read.

The henchman finished noting this down, nodded, and went. Shortly before dinner time, he came back to the train with the customary bliny with sour cream and caviar… as well as this.

‘Delicious’, Janus thought at the first bite. ‘Well worthy of a tsar… I could call it the Janus salad.’

INGREDIENTS

(DISCLAIMER: the author broke the piggy bank for some of these ingredients because she made this dish for her 26th birthday. Do not feel obliged to do the same—that being said, scouring places such as Petrossian or La Grande Épicerie de Paris (a French equivalent to Harrod’s) was very fun.)

Salad (makes 3-4 servings):

2 roasted partridges (can be replaced with roasted chicken)

8 (+1, see decoration) quail eggs (can be replaced with chicken eggs)

5-6 waxy new potatoes (if you’re Janus, you’ll probably want Jersey Royals. If you’re a French frog like the author, Noirmoutiers are an excellent replacement.)

70g smoked duck magret (omit if you don’t have access to it)

Half an English cucumber

1 tbsp capers

10 black olives

Meat from the scampi claws

Scampi broth (if raw scampi are used):

Parsley

Tarragon

Dill

2 bay leaves

1 onion, quartered

1 carrot, chopped

Jamaican pepper (Bond would approve)

Coarse salt

Provençal sauce:

1 egg yolk

1 tsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp vinegar

olive oil (or olive oil + a neutral tasting oil—olive oil has a strong taste)

black pepper

garlic powder

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2-3 tsp soy sauce

For the decoration of 1 serving:

2 scampi (aka. langoustines)

1 lettuce leaf

The spare quail egg, halved

Chives

Black caviar (if you’ve got Janus’ unlimited funds, beluga is a must—since the author hasn’t, she used osetra instead. A good, much cheaper replacement with a similar taste would be trout roe... except it isn't as dark as Alec's soul 😆)

DIRECTIONS

Roast the partridge (or chicken) and let it cool down

Boil the potatoes and let them cool down

Boil the quail eggs for 3 minutes and let them cool down (8 minutes for chicken eggs)

Make the scampi broth. When it boils, add the raw scampi and cook for 8 minutes starting  from when the broth boils again. Remove the pot from the stove and put it in a cold water bath. Leave the pot to cool down, so that the scampi are infused with the broth.

Remove the bones from the partridge/chicken, then chop it up into small pieces along with the potatoes, cucumber, magret, eggs and meat from the scampi claws. Add capers and sliced olives

Make the Provençal sauce. Mix the egg yolk and mustard then slowly add oil while whisking, until texture is firm (an electric hand mixer helps). Add the other ingredients and mix well.

Add two generous tablespoons of Provençal sauce to the salad, then gently mix it all up.

To serve, ideally use a ring mold. Decorate the molded salad with the scampi, egg, lettuce leaf, caviar and chives.

Serve very cold. The 1894 recipe says that it should be ideally done in ‘a crystal vase, like fruit macédoine’.

Приятного аппетита! (Bon appétit!)

SOURCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_salad (good overview)

https://liveuser.livejournal.com/77282.html (the 1894 recipe, in Russian)

https://stale.ru/en/different/olive-s-rakovymi-sheikami-gotovim-originalnye-salaty-olive-s/ (different variations of the original recipe with more complete instructions, Google (?) translated from Russian)

BONUS PICTURES:

Mmm roasted partridge

A good view on that caviar (I certainly am not going to get more any time soon, so gotta show off 😁). Also, six bliny of course.

Little birthday dessert in the same spirit:

Georgian black tea with lemon

Chocolate, lemon, raspberry and mango macarons

‘Cigarettes russes’ (Russian cigarettes), which are Belgian rolled biscuits

Raisin and lemon Scottish shortbread

Apple and honey ‘tulskiy pryanik’, a sort of gingerbread from Tula, Russia

PS: did you spot the three Sean Bean non-Alec Easter eggs in the opening blurb? 👀