Previously, on tastingmenu.wordpress.com –
* https://tastingmenu.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/wasabi-pepper-sauce/
This week was my wife’s birthday, so I was thinking of what to make for her. She hinted that she wanted lobsters, so I thought, “ok… steamed lobsters with jalapeno and spicy lemon dipping sauces.”. But I needed to come up with an appetizer. Matsuhisa’s tartare with caviar, I thought, might fit the bill; especially since I had a bit of leftover wasabi pepper sauce in the refridgerator from this weekend’s dinner.
The original recipe can be found in Nobu: The Cookbook (p. 133). I didn’t stray too far from the recipe when I did this for my wife and I. For two people the ingredients came to:
* For the sauce, it was –
2 tablespoons dashi
2 teaspoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons wasabi pepper sauce
For the sauce, combine the sauce ingredients and chill
Measured out the soy sauce for the tartare sauce
Added in the wasabi pepper sauce
…and finished the sauce with the dashi
* For the tartare itself –
4 oz of toro fillet, in this case, I was using sushi-grade salmon
1 teaspoon finely minced onion (here, I used a cippolini)
1/2 teaspoon grated garlic
1 teaspoon osetra caviar/serving (for today it was a generous 1 1/2 teaspoons!)
menegi/chives for garnish
1/2 teaspoon of garlic in the mixing bowl for the tartare
…I only needed half a cipollini…
…which I minced up for the tartare
To make the dish –
1. mince the fish as finely as possible. spread loosely on a plate and chill in the freezer for 10-15
minced up 4 oz of salmon fillet as Nobu’s commented option; and I’ve also had it with hamachi during an omakase meal
minutes
2. working quickly, take the minced fish out and combine with the onion and garlic
…Salmon, onion, garlic…
…quickly mixed
then stuff the mixture into 2″ diameter metal ring molds each on a small chilled serving bowls and remove molds
tartare moved to serving bowls (after unmolding)
3. place caviar atop the tartare (and then the menegi, if using).
osetra caviar for the tartare
4. pour the sauce carefully into the side of the serving bowls so as not to perturb the arrangement.
tartare fully loaded with a generous portion of caviar and the wasabi pepper sauce
This dish should be eaten with the caviar for that clean briny ‘pop’ counterpoint to the richness of the
salmon and tang of the wasabi pepper sauce. My wife noted that the flavors very much reminded her of the toro tartare omakase course she had at Matsuhisa.
Resource
Osetra cavair – Wegmans, Chestnut Hill, MA
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