Missed yesterday—sinus headache and an overwhelming desire to stay in bed until noon.
Last night's dinner was a moderate success. Here's the menu:
- salmon tartare
- basmati rice with fairy ring mushrooms
- shrimp in rare salmon cream sauce
- broccoli and chioggia beets in light soy
- baguette with brie
Okay, Princess V loves my salmon tartare, and the sockeye at Central Market glistened a promisingly fresh carmine, so that course was something of a given. I've experimented with a number of fish tartares (albacore, tuna, monkfish, and halibut), and the results have been mostly good. Uncooked albacore has a somewhat gummy texture that I find unpleasant; otherwise, my only missteps so far have been the non-fish ingredient choices (best example of a screw up that I recall was a halibut tartare with orange peel and some herb or another—pretty but way too bitter). I'm considering snapper and flounder, both of which make outstanding sashimi.
I admit I'm at a loss to explain my fascination with raw fish. Sure, part of it's the shock value: oh my god, you're eating that fish RAW! Yeah, I'm still that immature in that way, but just a little bit (hey, I'm male—I'm allowed). Still, I've been enjoying sushi and sashimi for years, so you'd think some of that would have worn off by now. I also like that Princess V loves the salmon tartare. That woman does enough (note to my oldest daughter: yes, I'm talking about sex—sweaty, kinky, full-contact, wild animal sex) for me that I'm always happy to recreate dishes she likes.
Anyway, the salmon tartare has been such a pleasure, I thought I should share that in a few thousand places, so here, in painstaking detail, it begins:
Salmon tartare in bacon
dramatis personae:
- 6 ounces fresh salmon
- one golfball-size shallot
- one tablespoon non-pareil capers
- one teaspoon tarragon vinegar
- two tablespoons fresh dill
- eight bacon rings
- baguette crouton crackers
quality of ingredients
Okay, so how do you know if the salmon is fresh? And, which kind of salmon do you want? Well, color is a damned fine starting point. For most varieties of both wild-caught and farm-raised salmon the flesh should be a brilliant pastel orange. Steelhead trout (yeah, yeah, not salmon, I know, but they're still anadromous salmonids, and the flavor is similar) is more vermillion, and sockeye salmon is actually carmine. The flesh should also be firm but not dry, intact (old fish starts to separate along the length of the fillets), and without much odor.
Here's where I piss off the gourmet and gourmand wannabes: If the texture, color, and odor are acceptable, farm-raised is just as good as wild-caught. Why pay three times as much for no advantage at the table? For an example of a typical contrary opinion on this matter, compare Nadsa's pretentious claims about salmon. I'll tell you right now, though, she wouldn't pass a blindfold taste test. Her claims about the problems with salmon farms are generalizations. Most of the salmon farms feed a combination of fish meal and krill. You don't know what the wild-caught salmon have been eating or where they've been harvested, which means you don't know what kind of industrial waste they've been swimming through. Nadsa expresses concern about bullying among farm salmon, but you're more likely to find bruises (big surprise) on wild-caught fish. As for the fishy smell, the only time pan-fried fish smells fishy is when it's overcooked, cooked in cornmeal (always a bad idea), or reheated. In each case, the result is the same for both wild-caught and farm-raised.
Shallots? Aren't those expensive? Can't I just use a combination of garlic and onion like they say in the cookbooks? Obviously I'm not going to come to your house and kick your ass if you fuck up my beautiful recipe, but let's keep the goal in mind: we're trying to enhance the flavor of some fairly delicate meat. Shallot has the right touch of sweetness, the right moisture content, the right tooth, and just a teeny bit of pungency to it. I don't think any amount of balancing will get the same result with a garlic clove and some onion. Garlic has too much punch, and it's too dry. Onion is too wet, too sweet, and some varieties can be both too bitter and too strong.
Non-pareils refers to the size of the capers. They're the smallest available capers, slightly larger than rocaille beads and slightly smaller than petit pois. The size of the capers controls the size of the diced ingredients in the tartare, which controls the overall texture. The capers should be stored in brine or salted vinegar. The Alessi™ brand are packaged in white balsamic vinegar, which makes them too sweet for this application (okay, I think it makes them too sweet for any application, but I guess someone, somewhere must like sweet-and-sour capers or they'd stop making the damned things). I also do not recommend using the Crosse & Blackwell™ capers; I don't know what they do to those little buggers, but they should stop it. Bleah.
I use Oscar Meyer™ center-cut bacon, preferably strips that start out at roughly 50 to 60 percent fat. The traditional container for salmon tartare is a ring of smoked salmon, but I consider this too much of a muchness. The bacon ring adds a touch more saltiness and a variation in texture, which I consider a positive addition to the overall oral experience. I prepare the bacon rings in the (gasp) microwave. I find this extremely efficient and relatively oil-free. I dare anyone to better my results with any stovetop method or even in a conventional oven. If you want to be a purist, I suppose you could bake the bacon rings in ramekins, wrapped around slices of baguette to retain the shape and absorb the oil.
I suppose something like bagel chips or crackers will work fine. Princess V and the girlchild seem to prefer the croutons, though, and they're pretty easy to make. Be sure you start with a baguette that's a tiny bit tough. If they're too light and soft, the insides occasionally crumble out.
preparation notes
All measurements are lies. At best, they're approximations and wild guesses. I do this by taste and appearance. I rarely resort to measures once I know what I'm looking for. For the salmon, six ounces refers to what's left after you cut away and discard the skin. You will probably have to start with a half pound of salmon. The best example of how I lie is that teaspoon of vinegar. I really have no idea how much vinegar I use. Last night I prepared a slightly smaller amount of tartare, using about four ounces of salmon. I used two quick squirts from my bottle of tarragon vinegar. Not all bottles have the little squirt top, though, so that might not be any help to you. As I said: lies, approximations, wild guesses. If you're going to cook, you're going to learn to trust your own tastes and judgment.
You wouldn't think it would be complicated turning six ounces of salmon into six ounces of salmon burger, but it is.
A bit.
See, you actually don't want the salmon ground up, you want it diced. I recommend putting the fish in the freezer for about a half hour (this is the same method most cooks use to slice carpaccio). Carefully slice the flesh away from the skin. Discard the skin and any darker meat near the skin. Slice the salmon crosswise into eighth-inch thick slices. Dice the slices into tiny bits, roughly the size of the capers. The shallot should be diced to this same size.
Frissée the dill until the bits are all no bigger than the capers.
All this anality about the size of the dice pays off orally. The resulting texture of the tartare is a relatively uniform granularity of alternating soft, crunchy, and firm bits that each offer a distinct flavor element to the dish.
To make the crouton crackers (the bases for the tartare hors d'oeuvres), cut the baguette diagonally into oblique, quarter-inch-thick slices. Paint each slice with a little olive oil and broil them (one side only) until golden brown (about a minute and a half in my broiler).
To make the bacon rings, make a roll of about eight to ten paper towels (roughly an inch-and-a-half in diameter). You should be able to wrap six strips of bacon around this. Wrap loosely (it will shrink) but don't leave any slack. Lightly wrap a single paper towel around the outside of the bacon. Microwave the roll on a ceramic plate on high for no more than thirty seconds per slice of bacon. If you haven't a rotisserie plate in your microwave, stop it every minute to turn the bacon. At the end of this time, the bacon rings should be cooked enough to stay together while you take them off the roll. To remove the rings, grab the ends of the roll of paper and twist it to loosen the rings. You may still have to nudge them a bit to get them off. Try not to break the rings. If they're not done to your taste but can be removed from the roll, remove them, set them atop a paper towel and drape another over them and microwave them about 30 seconds a go until you get the results you want.
Stuff each ring with a tablespoon or so of tartare, and nest it on a single crouton cracker. If you want to get fancy, you can garnish it with chives or sprigs of dill.
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