How to Make the Best Festive Appetizer: Beef Salad
A Romanian Salad, French in Name and Historically Having Almost Nothing to do With What’s in the Title!

If it sounds a tad confusing, here’s the disambiguation:
Romanians like many things but absolutely LOVE food; therefore, they are inventing dishes that everybody loves at the first try and often become traditional foods for holidays. This is a winter appetizer that cannot miss from the Christmas or New Year’s Eve festive table!
The story of Boeuf Salad, as we call it, has been originally a simple “game in mayo” dish, about two hundred years ago. In time, the pheasant was replaced with beef and the French name (Boeuf) stack for unclear reasons.
I have an inkling it might have to do with the fact that for a few decades before last century’s wars French was commonly spoken among the aristocracy of Romania and Bucharest, the capital city, was known as Little Paris.
Today, beef salad has any meat in it and I usually prepare it with chicken.
Now, because Romanians are also incredibly superstitious, there is a strong argument against eating chicken on the first day of the year. Unless you want to be going backwards the entire year, sort of like chickens scratching the ground and thus creating the back-walking illusion!
No, we don’t want that! This is why we eat fish on January 1st. So that we are slick and quick in our endeavours like a fish in the water!
If the argument is not strong enough, you can still use chicken in your Boeuf, but after the year we’ve had, are you really willing to take the risk?
Boeuf salad is mainly an appetizer made with boiled vegetables (potatoes, carrots, celeriac, peas, parsley) mixed with pickles (gherkins, bell-peppers) and a dollop of mayonnaise.
The best part of making this salad is that anyone can release their inner artist and go crazy with decorations. I like to use halved olives, boiled egg whites, finely cut pickles but the list does not stop here. Be creative; it’s fun!
What is important is that a large plateau of this appetizer is always present on each Romanian festive table and every New Year’s Eve dinner starts with it.
In any other year, Romanians would go crazy partying until the sun would come up on January first. The restaurants, hotels, boarding houses and any other place that can hold festive parties would be fully booked since August.
In the crazy year of 2020, for the first time in our recent history, this will not happen. It sounds surreal and completely alien. But it does not mean that we won’t set the table in the evening, imagine we’re at a monster New Year’s Eve party, the music is blasting in the speakers and the fireworks will go any minute above our house!
We better make it be the last time as well! Nobody will forget 2020, but we should learn something from it and never allow a repeat!
Happy New Year everyone!


Beef Salad
Ingredients
- 6-7 large potatoes
- 4-5 carrots
- 1 celeriac
- 2-3 parsnips
- 300 g peas
- 500 g diced beef
- 1 jar mayonnaise (small, about 250 g)
- 2 tbsp mustard
- 1 jar pickled gherkins
- 1 jar pickled bell-peppers
- 15-20 pitted olives
- 1-2 eggs
- sea salt
- pepper
Instructions
- In a huge pan, boil the meat first, changing the water at least once.
- Add the peeled carrots, celeriac (quartered), parsnips and potatoes and boil until ready. Check with a fork that everything is thoroughly cooked.
- On a large chopping board, chop all the vegetables and mix in a large bowl (or a large pan.)
- For food safety, use a different chopping board to chop the meat. Place the beef into the mixing bowl with the vegetables.
- Drain the pickles, save a few for decorating and finely chop the rest. Squeeze out the excess liquid before adding them to the mixing bowl.
- Finely cut long pieces of pickles and place them on a piece of absorbent paper. Leave aside until you get to the decorating part.
- Boil the eggs for at least 6 minutes, peel and remove the yolks. You will only need the whites, finely cut, to decorate the salad.
- Cut the olives in halves or rings and leave aside with the pickles.
- Empty half of the mayo jar onto the chopped vegetables, add mustard, salt and pepper and mix with a large wooden spoon, without crushing it too much.
- Place the mix on a large plateau and use a knife to give it a nice, regular shape.
- Use the rest of the mayo to cover the salad, top and side.
- Decorate with the finely chopped pickles, egg whites, olives.
- Refrigerate before use.
I am not a beef fan, but I’d love to try it with chicken. Also, I’d love to see if I could make the presentation just as interesting 😀 😀
yummy!!!! thank you for sharing. This recipe seems easy and delcious.
My husband loves all things meat, pickles and mayo … I’m thinking I could make this a surprise for him – it would be the best gift for him.
I am sure it would be! Everybody who tried this salad at my house left with the recipe in hand and made it for each festive occasion afterwards!
absolutely looking beautiful and thank you for sharing the history about it. Its nice how every country is unique in what they eat on the new year. For us having round fruits and noodles are a must. I want to try with mushroom
Absolutely! Mushrooms are my favourite meat replacement!
I have never heard of this before. It sounds really good and this is something my family would like to try. Thanks for sharing.
Wow, what a presentation and flavor combo! Sounds amazing!
This looks yummy but what I really love is the discussion on chicken vs beef vs fish – LOL,Awesome stuff.
Ahh, thank you! And yes, the day I’ll lose my sarcasm and self-mockery I’d most likely be dead! Haha!
Amazing! You did a great job telling us the history of the dish.
What an interesting recipe. It reminds me of the molded salads from the 50’s that were popular in the U.S. Such a beautiful presentation!
I have never heard of this dish before, but I’m so excited to try it! I love all of the ingredients, and you know I love experimenting with cuisines from around the world. Thanks for sharing this Romanian meal!
Definitely will be adding this into the rotation! This is my kind of recipe…use what you have and it’ll still be delicious!
Oh wow! This looks delicious and so pretty! I can’t wait to make this! Thank you for sharing!
Such a spectacular plate. I have to veganize this soon. And it is just in time for the holidays.
Thanks and I hope it works!
Okaayyyy, the title gonna threw me for a second but this LOOKS DELICIOUS!!!! Totally trying this.
wow! this post is AMAZING. i’d like to try it some day 🙂 thanks for sharing!!