There was a restaurant in Pavlodar, which my mum, sister and me were always dining at when shopping. Miss those girls’ times a lot!
I loved ‘West’ as it was cosy, and sort of played the music I liked and served the food I liked.

One of those was a salad ‘Raduga’ (Rainbow).
I still love the salad and always happy when my mum makes it for celebrations – and our visits are always considered as celebrations 😉

But tomorrow – on Christmas Day I plan to introduce my favourite friend to our Christmas meal. It is like marrying cultures I believe smile emoticon as I had not seen many salads, especially ‘Russian’ type salads on the Christmas menus neither in Germany (not counting those who migrated from ex-Soviet Union) nor in the UK.

What do I like about this salad? Is the fact that it is healthy and crunchy smile emoticon so get ready your vegetables, we are about to start.

Ingredients:

You will need a large flat round dish to serve this salad.
Depending on the dish you will need equal amounts of grated or thinly sliced in long thing sticks the following vegetables:

• 1/2 cucumber – seeds off
• Carrot
• Beet root (I love to use thinly sliced in logs fresh beetroot as you can find and salad mixtures, but cooked beetroots are preferred by my mum smile emoticon so make your pick).
• Yellow paprika (ok, sometimes you can improvise – like I had to do as I did not have a yellow but green paprika)

• 

• White cabbage (again, improvisation does not hurt – I used brussels sprouts thingy cut as well as purple cabbage)
• 
  Also prepare a pack of crisps – also in sticks shapes.
• Two-three tbsp of Mayo
• And a pack of salad mixture of your taste (ok, I admit that I have supply from Germany, but I guess if you mix up salt, pepper and some acid ingredients even a tbsp of wine vinegar will do)

Once everything is ready arrange each vegetable and crisps around the dish – the groups can touch each other but do not mix them up!
Place Mayo in the middle.
Sprinkle salad mixture over the mayo. If you use wine vinegar I will suggest to make a mixture with salt and paper and place it in a small container until the salad is served and you are ready to mix it up.
The beauty of the dish that you can prepare it a bit in advance, protect with a clean film and once everybody is ready and at the table mix it all up, this will bring everybody’s attention and will ensure that crisps are crunchy and not soggy.
For those who love raisins, soak them in water and add creating a circle around the Mayo.

 

Ones at the table mix everything up using salad spoons.

Enjoy your Christmas Meal!