Ensaladilla Rusa recipe

You’ll be hard pushed to find a tapas bar in Spain that doesn’t dish up this gem. So we’ve included this ensaladilla Rusa recipe so you can recreate it at home. Yes we know it originated in Russia… but the Spanish have adopted it and made it their own. Enjoy!

Ingredients – basic

• Half a dozen medium sized potatoes, peeled, diced and boiled until tender
• A couple of roasted red peppers- diced – these are optional, but the ones in jars are great for this
• Small tin of tuna, drained
• A dollop or two of mayonnaise – according to taste
• 2 or 3 hard boiled eggs – grated, lightly mashed or crumbled

Method

• Mix the whole caboodle except the eggs
• Sprinkle the egg on top
• Serve cold

Spain Buddy tips

There’s not a lot to really add to this… but follow your instincts. If there’s something you don’t like omit it… well apart from the potatoes of course. But feel free to add a couple of extra flavours if you want to. I quite like the following – feel free to mix and match

• a small amount of really finely diced red onion for some crunch and tang
• a couple of fistfuls of olives – sliced as a garnish
• a fistful of finely diced apple
• Fistful of peas, cooked and cooled
• Sliced cornichons (gherkins / pickles) – sliced
• cherry tomatoes – halfed or quartered. But add those as a garnish rather than in the mix
• You can press the salad into a mold, and refrigerate. That’s a bit fussy for me, I’d rather just serve it in a large bowl for people to help themselves… but it’s nice to do for a party if you’d rather be mingling than serving
• If serving as a centre dish for last minute visitors… pop it in a bowl and supply some of those mini breadsticks for dipping

Elle Draper

Elle, along with Alan, is the owner of Spain Buddy and the busy web design business - Gandy-Draper. Born a "Norverner", she then spent most of her life "Dann Saff" before moving to Spain in 2006. Elle's loves are Alan, the internet, their three bouncing dogs, good food, and dry white wine - although not necessarily in that order.