On Tartare

The classic bistro dish, and some descendants

I made steak tartare yesterday, and after posting a picture, someone asked for a recipe. It really isn’t my recipe, so this is somewhat of a cop-out as recipe posts go. I’ve attempted to pad it out with some additional notes developing on the theme, possibly suggestive of what makes a good raw meat salad in keeping with tartare stylistically. There are of course many many raw meat dishes from cuisines across the world, but for now, I’ll stick to tartare (the last thing I want are angry Thai women coming after me). The other tartare recipes aren’t quite tartare, but the connections & principle feel consistent.

Bistro Style Steak Tartare, Joël Robuchon

There are some variations on the bistro classic, however my particular favourite recipe is the one Joël Robuchon gives, resulting in a less mayonaisey dressing than others, with the meat dressed but not overly saucy. Many recipes will tell you to part freeze your meat, or at least chill it (as well as all your bowls & utensils), however I think this is unnecessary and results in a less aromatic dish. You won’t get perfectly uniform little cubes of meat, but that seems an odd thing to strive for, whereas a nicely tempered steak more readily releases its aromas and will cut into more natural chunks. The only way you get a mushy texture is if the meat, your knife sharpness, or knife skills aren’t up to standard. I also like this recipe for it’s use of Tabasco & Worcestershire; I’ve tried swapping these out for fancy seeming alternatives and they are not better (at least, not better as a classic tartare).

The sauce component of this is quite different to what we think of as tartare sauce today so I’m unclear on the history of the term. Robuchon’s recipe is notable for his exclusion of cornichons, which I think is a good decision which allows the meat flavours and smells to be more in focus.

Per person:

• 100-150g beef (this is one of the few dishes I prefer to use beef fillet for, but well trimmed rump is cheaper and works well)

• 1 egg yolk (or 2 if you like an extra)

• 1 small shallot finely chopped (roughly 1 tablespoon, you can also use a small white onion, however shallot works well here)

• 1 teaspoon capers, drained of excess brine, and chopped (I like the small ones for this)

• approx.1 heaped teaspoon of finely chopped flat parsley (Bistrot Paul Bert also add chives, a nice addition)

• 0.5-1t Dijon mustard (add more to taste)

• 1 tablespoon “good olive oil” (take a shot if you’re playing the food twitter drinking game)

• 1 teaspoon ketchup

• Worcestershire sauce (Lea & Perrins is generally the best and most widely available, some other brands don’t even use anchovies or ferment their sauce….I’m looking at you ‘sub-par Yorkshire brand’ sauce)

• Tabasco

• Salt & pepper

Steps:

1. In a bowl, mix one egg yolk, mustard, and some salt & pepper, then whisk in the olive oil.

2. Mix in the shallot, capers, and parsley. Then stir in the ketchup (add half first, then taste, and add the remainder). Then add the Worcester sauce in the same way as the ketchup, a little at a time, to taste (unless you are confident you know which quantity you like). And finally, the tabasco. Finally, add more salt & pepper if needed.

3. Check your meat for an remaining sinew or chunks of fat your butcher may have missed. Carefully remove any which could be too toothsome in the tartare mix.

4. Cut your meat into small chunks, roughly 7mm: first slice across the grain to get rounds of steak, then cut these into not-quite-dice chunks. If you come across any tough chunks of fat or tendon, remove them.

5. As soon as you have cut the meat, put it into the sauce, and gently mix until it is evenly dressed (Robuchon says ‘homogenous and bound together’….although I don’t think it being bound is especially important). Taste for seasoning one last time, and adjust as necessary. Try to minimise incorporating too much air when mixing, as this can cause too many oxidative flavours and discolouration.

6. Place on a plate (some people will use ring moulds, but that isn’t necessary, you can just roughly shape it), and top with a second egg yolk. Eat promptly, don’t let it sit around and diminish. I like to eat it with some thin toasts and a light red or full bodied white wine. A small side salad would also be good with this, but I find mixing meat salad with salad salad a bit over the top. If I were in a bistro I would probably order a side portion of some French fries or matchstick potatoes, but I rarely make fries at home.

Adapted from The Complete Robuchon, Joël Robuchon & Vincent Noce, English translation (by Robin Bellinger) published by Grub Street London

A similar version, closer to Bistrot Paul Bert’s recipe, more mustard and no yolk in the dressing (they don’t add any yolk, but garnish with another dollop of Dijon)

Robuchon’s lineage — and Tabasco — continues: Lamb Tartare, Eric Ripert

Eric Ripert trained under Joël Robuchon (before being sent to train with Jean-Louis Palladin in Washington DC), and talks about the sensitivity of his palate and the rigour of his training with reverence and some residual terror. As a saucier under Robuchon, Eric says Chef would always know if he had refreshed a sauce from the morning service instead of making it fresh for the evening service. Eric is now wildly successful, however at one point in his career, he said that despite the critical acclaim and professional recognition, he didn’t feel like a very good cook. He has previously said that it took him until the year 2000 to realise he was actually very good indeed. During this time around the millennium, Ripert made a deliberate effort to connect with his creative intuition on a deeper level, including a project where he worked with several friends — amongst them a writer, painter, and photographer — on ‘A Return to Cooking’, which I think is a very inspiring cook book, especially for a home cook. The premise of the book is Eric’s exploration of spontaneous meals with friends, allowing him to reconnect with a creative freedom away from the professional constraints of a 3* kitchen and classical French flavour combinations, as an extremely skilled home cook. What results are very beautiful dishes, some of which are beyond the skill of many home cooks (and occasionally excessively frou frou, as he notes), but the freedom of expression and sense of jazz like spontaneity in approach is very inspiring to me. In this book he cooks in a way which his responsibilities at Le Bernadin does not allow, opening up dishes which are accessible in style to a home context.

One of his dishes, prepared during a spring stay in Napa, is a Lebanese inspired lamb tartare, served with baguette toasts and a creamy cucumber salad.

Eric correctly notes that raw meat and egg yolk may be two of the sexiest things to eat; however he does not include egg yolk in this tartare, instead opting for more aromatic lemon oil (made by including lemons in with olives when milling). A major consistency with his mentor’s tartare, is his use of Tabasco. In the book, Michael Ruhlman comments about Ripert’s use of Tabasco as a seasoning in many of his dishes; never identifiable as an ingredient, but something like salt, pepper, or lemon juice, which can be used to subtly enhance and balance the aromatic and taste profiles of many dishes.

Per person:

Tartare ingredients:

• 100g lean lamb, hand chopped just before mixing with the other tartare ingredients

• 2 teaspoon minced shallots

• 1 teaspoon chopped cornichons

• 1 teaspoon chopped capers

• 1 teaspoon mint julienne

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• 1 teaspoon lemon oil

• 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

• Tabasco sauce to taste

• Fine sea salt and freshly ground

• white pepper

• A mint sprig for garnish

Cucumber salad ingredients:

• 1 kirby cucumber, thinly sliced

• 3g kosher salt (about 1/2 teaspoon)

• 1 teaspoon mint julienne

• 1 teaspoon chopped shallot

• 1/2 small clove of garlic, minced

• ¼ teaspoon diced Lemon Confit

• 2 teaspoons sour cream

• 1 teaspoon bottled lemon oil

• Pinch of cayenne pepper

• Pinch of freshly ground cumin

• Fine sea salt, if necessary, and freshly ground white pepper

Salad method:

1. Place the sliced cucumber in a bowl and sprinkle the salt over all, tossing to coat evenly.

2. Allow the cucumber to rest for 10 minutes; then drain.

3. In a bowl, combine the other salad ingredients except the salt and pepper and stir to incorporate.

4. Add the cucumbers, and toss to combine.

5. Season to taste with salt and pepper (it may not need additional salt).

6. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve

Tartare method:

1. No more than 5 minutes before serving, combine all the ingredients for the tartare except the salt and pepper and mint in a large bowl and gently stir to incorporate. As with the beef recipe above, try not to incorporate too much air, as this can cause the lamb to take on unpleasant colours and flavours.

2. Season to taste with salt and pepper, as well as additional tabasco, lemon oil, or lemon juice.

3. Serve on a plate, and top with some picked mint leaves. Serve with the cucumber salad, and toasted or baked slices of baguette.

4. Eat immediately

Adapted from A Return to Cooking, Eric Ripert & Michael Ruhlman, published by Artisan (Workman Publishing)

Steak Tartare’s Grandchildren

I have recently been re-reading Bertrand Grébaut (Septime, D’une île, Clamato, La Cave) and Tommy Banks (The Black Swan & Roots), both of which are very inspiring as cooks, and in Grébaut’s case embodying the sort of delicious departure from more classical, or even modern haute-cuisine restaurant cookery which ripped through Paris in the 90s, and which is still developing in some sense.

Although as a home cook I try not to take on too much direct influence from restaurant recipes, I believe we can learn a lot from the way these highly creative cooks combine high levels of technique with a playful, passionate attitude to ingredient combinations. Something like the classic tartare above is very easy to accomplish, whereas some recipes by the likes of Grébaut & Banks would require specialist equipment, significant time and skill in order to recreate. However between the two is a whole world of creative dishes, which don’t require decades of practice and a full team of cooks to prepare.

The way Grébaut & Banks approach their raw meat dishes is very telling. They take the principles of something a lot like a steak tartare, and inject it with a more specific sense of place and time with their focus on local, seasonal ingredients (now a hackneyed phrase, but still worth championing when done well). Tommy & Bertrand are both very technical in their processes for the dishes listed below, they aren’t well aligned to what makes a dish good for a home cook (a certain sense of ease or simplicity of process, where high levels of complexity aren’t incentivised by commercial success and critical acclaim or subsidised by paying customers). However anyone can learn from their creativity and willingness to play.

A few examples of dishes which are highly original, using unusual ingredients or flavour combinations, even if closely related to more classic versions of raw meat salads and the principles of what makes a raw meat salad good (good quality meat, richness, acidity, salinity, some funky umami, some sharp crunch, some spiciness, herbal notes, etc):

• Raw beef sirloin with rose mayonnaise, fermented gooseberries, red rancio vinegar, and saffron-tomato jelly (Septime)

• Raw beef (8-week matured rump steak) ’tacos’ with nasturtium leaves and flowers, fermented young garlic, chilli oil, and a pepper sabayon dip (D’une île)

• Raw cold smoked venison with beer onion puree, cured egg yolk, shallot ash, and ‘woodland gear’ i.e.: wood sorrel leaves, primroses, very young wild garlic shoots. (The Black Swan)

It doesn’t take much of a leap to see how starting from a classic, well made tartare, could provide a base for countless variations, even in a relatively simple way. Reflecting on what to share in response to the request for the recipe for tartare, I also thought about what I might put together if I were to do a non-classical tartare. My mind went to a dish inspired by spring time in my local Yorkshire; lamb tartare, seasoned with wild garlic oil, chopped pickled walnuts, sweet onion, wild bitter mustard greens, chive flowers, juniper vinegar and mushroom katsup, perhaps a side salad of barely cooked asparagus ribbons with wood sorrel and toasted hazelnuts. I haven’t tried making it yet, but I’m looking forward to experimenting!