Bagration Salad Recipe

Preparation
Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta according to the instructions (generally, 12 minutes after boiling). Pour the cooked pasta into a colander, rinse under cold water, and drain. Let them cool in a large bowl with 1 tablespoon of oil so they don't stick together. Hard boil the eggs for 9 to 10 minutes, rinse under cold water, and peel them. You can prepare the pasta and eggs several hours in advance, even the day before.

Celery and artichokes. Cut the ends off the celery stalks and slice them into 1-centimeter-thick pieces. Drain the artichoke hearts and cut them into quarters.

Assembly
Mix the tomato puree with the cold pasta, then the mayonnaise (prepared in advance if it's homemade: you'll need one egg, mustard, a splash of vinegar or lemon juice, and 250 milliliters of oil). Just before serving, mix in the artichoke hearts and celery with the cooled pasta, and season with salt and pepper.

Presentation Cut the eggs in half or quarters and separate the yolks from the whites. Chop them separately (honestly, it's a detail: nobody will mind if you chop the hard-boiled eggs whole, yolks and whites together). Chop the parsley finely. Arrange in the center of a serving dish, surround with a border of chopped hard-boiled yolks, a border of wrapped meat, and chopped hard-boiled whites. Sprinkle everything with finely chopped parsley. For presentation, you have a choice: if your dish is rectangular, you can lay the pasta salad lengthwise in the middle, or you can previously pack the pasta salad in a large round bowl so that you can unmold it in the center of a round dish. In both cases, the cold cuts surround the pasta, along with the chopped hard-boiled eggs.