Flesh for Fantasy

Salmon of the Steppes

Steak tartare was supposed to have been named for a Tatar practice of eating raw meat. Also supposedly, this practice was born of necessity. The demanding lifestyle of nomadic raiders didn't allow time for stopping to cook and eat a semi-formal sit-down dinner. Taras Bulba and his buds had to eat on the run. If this is true, the original steak tartare was likely more often horse meat than beef.

If you've never had steak tartare, the feral, rapacious rep of the Tatars coupled with the fact that the primary ingredient in steak tartare is raw meat, probably make the dish sound pretty bloody. It's hard not to picture a Tatar on horseback, wind whipping through the fur of his hat as he tears bloody gobbets of meat from a t-bone. In truth, steak tartare is not bloody—it's not even a true red. With the addition of such traditional ingredients as Worcestershire sauce and Dijon mustard, steak tartare is more of a reddish-brown.

Recent decades have seen the term tartare applied to just about any sort of chopped raw flesh. I've had tartares of venison, buffalo, tuna, salmon, halibut, red snapper, and beef. I have mixed feelings about this expansion of the meaning of tartare. On the one hand, it seems a bit unimaginative. On the other hand, what's not to love about the mental image of our weathered, sword-wielding Tatar whipping a salmon from his saddle pack and tearing it open with his teeth? Tatar as grizzly bear.

Meanwhile Back in the Real World

My version of salmon tartare is pretty traditional in many respects: shallot, dill, tarragon vinegar, capers, and a crispy crouton as a base. My one big departure is that, instead of the traditional wrap of smoked salmon, I serve mine in bacon rings. I settled on this recipe about six years ago, and I have never seen any reason to alter it.

Salmon tartare in bacon rings on crostini

(serves three)

dramatis personae

tartare
one pound salmon filet, skin and brown flesh removed
one medium shallot, finely diced
one quarter cup cup non-pareil capers
one quarter cup dill, minced
two table spoons tarragon vinegar

rings
twelve strips center cut bacon

crostini
one dense baguette, sliced thin
one quarter cup extra-virgin olive oil

quality of ingredients

Allow me, yet again, to sing the praises of sock-eye salmon. Sock-eye is redder than most salmon and also sweeter. If sock-eye is unavailable, king salmon, usually a bit more expensive, is meatier than sock-eye but delicious nonetheless. My next choice (over either coho or Atlantic salmon) isn't actually salmon, but steelhead (an ocean-running variety of rainbow trout) is richer than king salmon and almost as sweet as sock-eye. Ultimately, though, I'll take the freshest salmon available. For the tartare in these pictures, I used coho. The fishmonger had steelhead, but it was too fatty and not quite as fresh as the coho.

preparation notes

Primarily, as I said before, the tartare is pretty simple: dice the solid ingredients and mix them. In order to maintain a uniform consistency, I recommend dicing the shallot and salmon so that the pieces are about the same size as your capers.

I suppose it might be possible to make bacon rings in the oven, but the microwave does a much better job because it allows you to sandwich the strips between paper towels to wick away the grease. You'll want to do this in two stages.

First, on a microwave-safe plate, sandwich the bacon strips between layers of paper towels. Microwave the strips on high for four minutes or so. This will vary by microwave oven; you want the bacon almost fully cooked but still pliable.


Second, make three forms for the rings by rolling paper towels into cylinders roughly an inch and a half in diameter. Wrap four bacon strips around each form and wrap another two layers of paper towel around the bacon. Microwave the rings until crispy.


To free the rings from the forms, pinch both ends of the form and twist them along the long axis. Once the bacon releases the paper, you can slide the rings off the form.


The crostini are blissfully simple. Brush a thin layer of extra-virgin olive oil on each slice of baguette, lay them out on a cookie sheet and toast them under the broiler for about three minutes, turning them every minute or until golden-brown.

To serve, place each bacon ring on a crostino and fill the ring with tartare.

As I type, I just finished four of these, and I'm stuffed.