Mortadella Twist on Classic Olivier Salad

Of all the New Year dishes, this year I found myself craving Olivier salad, but specifically with sausage. Unfortunately, my favorite Doctor's sausage isn’t available here, so a brilliant idea struck me — why not make Olivier with mortadella?

I walked into our local Italian shop and turned to the Italian seller, speaking in English:

“Could I have half a kilo of mortadella, please?”

He looked a little surprised.

“Would you like me to slice it for you?” he asked.

“No, no, thank you, I want the whole piece.”

He stopped fussing around and just stared at me.

“Well, it’s for a salad; I’ll be cutting it into cubes...”

At this point, some sort of English-Italian expression came into play, as no one was keen on simply selling me the mortadella. I had to explain exactly what I planned to do with it.

“Ah, Russian salad, I know! What a clever idea! My wife is Latvian, but I’ve never heard of that from her!”

He liked the idea so much that he even cut it in a way that made it easier for me to chop into cubes later. And he wished me a Happy New Year in Russian!