Appetizer

Peel the potatoes and carrots and dice them to form cubes of 1 cm. Bring a pan of water to the boil and add salt. Cook the potatoes first, calculating 10 minutes from the time when the water returns to the boil. Remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer the carrots to the same water, cooking them for 8 minutes. Finally, cook the peas, removing them as soon as the water returns to the boil. As you remove the vegetables from the pan, place them on a tray lined with kitchen roll and leave them to cool. Hard-boil 2 eggs separately. Place them in a pan of cold water and boil them for 8 minutes from the time when the water comes to the boil. Once they are cold, shell and dice them. Dice the gherkins and black olives into cubes of about half a cm. Coarsely chop the dill.
Make the mayonnaise. Place 2 egg yolks, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of mustard, a spoonful of vinegar and the juice of half a lemon in the blender beaker. Blend to amalgamate the ingredients, then dribble in the oil, still blending, to make a firm mayonnaise. Place the cold vegetables, the hard-boiled eggs, the gherkins, the olives and the dill together in a bowl. Add the mayonnaise and mix well, then add salt and pepper to taste.
Place a cylindrical pastry cutter about 10 cm in diameter on the plates and fill it with the Russian salad, levelling the surface with the back of a spoon. Remove the pastry cutter gently and complete with a few salad leaves and two slices of smoked salmon.