European · Starter · From the menu Sobremesa
Beef tartare, cured yolk
Tartar de ternera, yema curada
Fillet chopped by hand, dressed sharp, with an egg yolk cured in salt and sugar until it grates like a hard cheese. No raw yolk on top, which is the version most people have had.
I had the cure badly wrong and I am glad I checked. I was giving the yolks forty-eight hours; every published cure runs four to seven days, and the ones with a proper method attached sit at six or seven. Two days gives you a yolk that looks cured and behaves like a raw one. The other thing worth stealing is the freezer trick: forty-five minutes in the freezer before you cut, and the fillet slices cleanly instead of dragging.
Ingredients
- 600 g beef fillet tail, all sinew removed
- 6 egg yolks for curing, plus 300 g each of fine salt and caster sugar
- 1 small onion, very finely diced
- 60 g capers, chopped
- 60 g cornichons, finely chopped
- 30 g Dijon mustard
- 4 anchovy fillets, mashed
- 1 egg yolk for the dressing
- 60 ml olive oil
- 30 ml Cognac
- Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, flaked salt, black pepper
- Chives, and hot toast to serve
Method
- Six to seven days ahead, mix the salt and sugar in equal weight. Spread half in a small tray, make six dips with a spoon, sit a yolk in each, and cover completely with the rest. Refrigerate at 4 °C or below.
- Lift the yolks out, rinse them gently in cool water and pat dry. Dry them at 60 °C for two hours in a low oven or a dehydrator if you want them firm enough to shave, or 93 °C for thirty to forty minutes if you want them firmer faster. They keep two weeks, wrapped, in the fridge.
- On the day: put the trimmed fillet in the freezer for 45 minutes. It should be firm at the edges but not frozen through.
- Slice it thin, then into strips, then chop it to about 3 mm dice with a very sharp knife. Never a processor: the blades crush the fibres and the texture goes to paste.
- Keep the chopped beef on ice, covered, until the moment of service.
- Build the dressing separately: work the raw yolk with the mustard and the mashed anchovy, whisk in the oil and the Cognac, then fold through the onion, capers and cornichons. Season with Worcestershire and a drop of Tabasco.
- Fold the dressing through the beef with a fork and serve immediately. None of the chefs publishes a holding time for dressed tartare, and the reason is that they all send it the moment it is mixed.
- Shape lightly on cold plates, grate the cured yolk over the top like parmesan, add chives and serve with hot toast.
Serve it with. Thin, very hot toast, and cold beer rather than wine. The Wellington uses the other end of the same fillet.