Goodbye to Tuna in Russian Salad: Chefs Make It with Prawns, Smoked Eel or Small Sardines

New potatoes, diced carrot, a mayonnaise that wraps everything and, almost always, a tin of tuna. That is the Russian salad (ensaladilla rusa) served across much of Spain, from the bar counter to the beach picnic box.

It works, but it is not the only possible version. Several of the best-known chefs in Spain suggest swapping the usual tinned fish for prawns, smoked eel or small sardines, and the dish gains another depth of flavour.

Before getting to the recipes, a little context, because the salad has more history than it seems.

From the Olivier salad to the Spanish tapa

The original recipe was born in Moscow. The French-born cook Lucien Olivier created it in the 1860s at the Hermitage restaurant, where he worked until his death in 1883.

That salad was a luxury dish, with ingredients such as veal tongue, crayfish or caviar, and a sauce whose exact formula Olivier never revealed. In Russia it is still known as Olivier salad.

Spain adopted it, simplified it and turned it into a classic of its own. Today it is almost a trademark of Spanish bars, and every cook interprets it in their own way.

Chicote’s Russian salad: the stock is the secret

Alberto Chicote puts the focus on whole prawns, although he does not give up tinned fish entirely: his recipe also includes bonito in oil. The difference lies in how he uses the shellfish.

First he cooks the prawns in boiling water with salt and bay leaf, barely a minute if they are fresh. With the heads and shells he makes a stock with an intense sea aroma.

In that stock he then cooks the potatoes and carrots, always separately, because each has its own point. That way the vegetables absorb the taste of the sea from the inside, not just on the surface.

To bind everything, a homemade mayonnaise with mustard, sherry vinegar and lemon juice. The amount is to each person’s taste.

The detail that changes everything: do not throw away the water you cooked the prawns in. That stock, strained, is what gives the potato the seafaring flavour that separates an ordinary Russian salad from a memorable one.

Dani García and the smoked eel

For anyone after a bolder twist, Dani García proposes a salad with smoked eel, accompanied by piparras (pickled green chillies) and green olives as pickles.

His technique with the potato is revealing: he mashes it while still warm, with a rustic texture, without turning it into a purée. The mayonnaise goes in little by little, to control the creaminess.

The finishing touch is a simple gesture: let the salad rest outside the fridge before serving, because intense cold dulls flavours. If the eel is beyond your budget, the chef himself suggests salmon or smoked cod.

Martín Berasategui’s small sardines

Martín Berasategui works in a more traditional register, but with his own stamp: he mixes small sardines in oil with prawns and mayonnaise to make an appetiser with much more flavour.

Another of his tricks is in the sauce. He suggests stirring in at the end a couple of chopped salted anchovy fillets with the mayonnaise. The result tastes of the coast and of salt air, very Cantabrian.

How to choose and cook the potato

The potato is the base and not all of them will do. For Russian salad you want firm varieties that hold up in cooking without falling apart:

• Kennebec
• Spunta
• Red Pontiac
• New potatoes with thin skin

Karlos Arguiñano, for his part, advises against the floury ones, such as Monalisa, Nagore or Désirée, because they stand up less well to cooking.

The method several cooks describe is to boil them whole and with their skins, in salted water with a splash of oil. That way they do not get waterlogged and keep their texture.

Once cooked, some people put half through a potato ricer for creaminess and cut the other half into small cubes. That double play of textures gives every spoonful something to bite into.

A lighter mayonnaise

Mayonnaise is the soul of the dish, but also what weighs it down most. A resource several cooks share is to thin it with plain yoghurt.

The texture becomes more fluid and the yoghurt’s tang refreshes the palate between bites. It works especially well with the smoked versions.

Storage: Russian salad made with homemade mayonnaise should be kept in the fridge and eaten as soon as possible. Take it out a little before serving so it loses the chill, but do not leave it for hours at room temperature.

Your Russian salad, your signature

Prawns with their stock, eel with piparras, small sardines with anchovy: each version says something about whoever cooks it. The vinegar of the pickles, the smoke of the fish or the iodine of the shellfish are what set the character.

The tin of tuna will keep its place, but it is worth trying at least one of these variations. Will you start with Chicote’s prawn stock or dare to try the smoked eel?