The recipe for classic vinaigrette

For some reason it is believed that the word "vinaigrette" means "mixture", "Euralash", although its etymology is closer to the French "vinegar". And we can be proud of the fact that this salad is originally of Russian origin, although it is called in a foreign manner. This cold vegetable dish was traditional at the royal court, and from the middle of the 19th century it was served with flavored vinegar. And the vinaigrette was not initially so simple as we eat it today. Only the fact that it had many ingredients available to ordinary people changed the salad beyond recognition and made it a national dish.

In general, the recipe for classic vinaigrette was this. The composition of the vinaigrettes included: 2 beets, 3 to 5 potatoes, 3 small salted cucumbers, pickled ceps, white beans, pike-perch fillet - all in the amount of 100 grams, 50 grams of capers (many, probably, do not know what it is Unbroken buds of exotic prickly bush, rich in fiber and useful organic substances), slightly fresh cabbage, 1 teaspoon of mustard, a little sugar, 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil and half a glass of 3 percent vinegar.

How to make a classic vinaigrette? Beet to cook or bake. Potatoes and beans boil. Pike perch, add salt and pepper. All this, including mushrooms and cucumbers, cut into small slices. Cut cabbage and keep it in hot water until soft, then throw it back in a colander and squeeze it. Stir, pour with sauce and mix again.

The recipe for classic vinaigrette would be incomplete if we did not tell how the sauce for salad was prepared. There is no easier recipe. Take a little cold water, stir in it sugar, mustard, pepper, salt, then poured into this mixture gradually vinegar. That's all. But the spice turned out to be unusually tasty.

Over time, the composition of vinaigretta has changed and since the end of the XIX century the recipe for classic vinaigrette has already been included, except for beets, potatoes and pickles, boiled onion onions. Fresh cabbage was replaced with sauerkraut. The volume of all vegetables was taken in approximately equal proportions, only onions were used a little more, and sometimes instead of onions cut into green. In addition to vegetables cut steep eggs and soaked in milk herring. In this case, sauerkraut in the salad was not put.

The sauce also became different. The composition of the filling included: all the same three percent vinegar, vegetable oil, salt and pepper to taste.

Due to the fact that there were no exact measurements on the proportions of the ingredients, the art of the cooks was that. So as not to spoil the taste of vinaigrette with improper flavors. In order not to pepper, do not overdo it and make it too sharp, vegetables were taken or baked, or boiled in the peel. And add spices once, only at the end of cooking. After a while, when the vegetables have absorbed the right amount of components, the salad was tasted and only then added something that was not enough for taste.

Today the question of how to make vinaigrette, no one has any problems. However, along with the abundance on the shelves, we stopped preparing it almost completely and have already begun to forget the recipe for classic vinaigrette. But time passes and I want to try that delicious salad, which necessarily rose in the center of the table as a dish of prime importance. In the vinaigrette of our time now also includes green peas, as well as all kinds of greens. Some housewives add fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, turnip and apple to it. And instead of vinegar, many people use lemon juice.

Well, the taste and color of comrades there. And if you like, then you can also offer your recipe. But the most delicious will remain exactly that vinaigrette, which we enjoyed during the Soviet times, when there was no excess and therefore we were satisfied with what we had.