Bull Salad with Chicken and Pineapple
This main festive salad won’t just decorate the feast - it can also attract good luck. More and more often we turn to the Eastern calendar - why not? Let’s believe in good luck!
Updated : 23 February, 2026
Easy
About 1 hour.
Ingredients
Head
500 grams
Chicken fillet
110 grams
Hard cheese
240 grams
Pineapple
200 grams
Canned corn
3
Chicken eggs
40 grams
Walnut
1
Garlic
100 grams
Mayonnaise
Horns
90 grams
Hard cheese
90 grams
Melted cheese
30 grams
Carrot
1
Garlic
60 grams
Mayonnaise
Decorating
1
Eggs
100 grams
Boiled sausage
3
Olives
Table
Table of volume measurements:
- teaspoon - 5 ml
- dessert spoon - 10 ml
- tablespoon - 20 ml
- glass - 200 ml
Preparation
Step 1
How do you make Bull Salad for the New Year’s table? For a beautiful presentation, I’ll need three different salads that harmonize in taste. For the bull’s head, a salad with chicken, pineapple, and corn with a mayonnaise dressing works well. The chicken can be boiled, smoked, or pan-fried - your choice. The cheese can be any kind you like; I used a simple fermented cheese. Boil the eggs hard.
Step 2
I’m making the salad with pan-fried chicken fillet. If you want the same, first rinse the meat and pat it very dry with paper towels. Trim off fat and any membrane as much as possible. Slice the fillet into thin strips along the grain, then cut those strips across the grain into squares, about 1.5 × 1.5 cm (about 0.6 × 0.6 in). Transfer the meat to a colander and add a little flour. Toss the pieces well, then shake off excess flour - the meat will sear quickly and stay juicy.
Step 3
Heat a skillet, add a little neutral refined oil, and let it get very hot over high heat. Add all the meat at once only into well-heated oil. Don’t rush to stir - let a crust form and brown slightly. Then stir, and stir a couple more times. Thin pieces of fillet fry in just 3-4 minutes. Remove the meat from the heat, add salt and pepper, and let it rest briefly under a lid, then cool completely.
Step 4
Transfer the cooled meat to a deep salad bowl. Add drained corn, finely chopped pineapple, and finely chopped nuts. Grate the eggs on a coarse grater and the cheese on a fine grater. At this stage, you can cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight, and dress and mix it right before serving or before shaping the bull figure. For the dressing, press garlic into the mayonnaise - or you can add it straight to the bowl right away.
Step 5
To make the horns and the tuft, you’ll need a cheese-based salad. For the horns, finely grate two types of cheese, press the garlic through a press, and mix with mayonnaise. Divide the salad, and add finely grated fresh carrot to 1/3 of it - this part will be used for the tuft.
Step 6
Start turning the prepared salads into a little bull as close to serving time as possible, so the decoration stays neat and presentable. Begin by preparing the head elements. Cut out the nose and ears from boiled sausage or brighter-colored ham. Use egg whites for the eyes. Nostrils, eyebrows, and pupils can be made from black grapes or olives. I sketched the layout beforehand so the salad would fit the chosen platter. I compared all the cut pieces to the sketch and adjusted their size.
Step 7
For serving, I chose a flat egg-shaped platter, 26 × 30 cm (about 10.2 × 11.8 in). Use small dots of mayonnaise to mark the outer points of the figure’s outline on the platter. I marked the placement of the horns, ears, and the overall head contour.
Step 8
Mix the main chicken salad and start laying it out along the outline. Gradually build volume, making the tuft area higher. Then shape the horns by hand from the cheese salad and place them where they belong. Naturally, your hands should be clean.
Step 9
Finely grate the remaining egg white and a little hard cheese over the main salad. This imitates the bull’s “fur,” and like in nature it can be uneven. Attach the eyes, eyebrows, ears, nose, and the bull’s lip. Lastly, spread the cheese salad with carrot and shape a funny tuft. Clean any fallen crumbs off the plate - everything should look tidy.
Step 10
Before serving, decorate the edges of the platter with greens to create a “meadow.” Place a small flower or greens into the slightly open mouth. Add a little grated cheese onto the ears to imitate fur. That’s it - serve!
Author note
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