tartare salad

yeah, you read that right

okay i’ll keep this short and sweet because i keep seeing memes about how much people hate the spiel at the start of recipes aha.

so instead of telling you my life’s story or about my deep emotional connection with this dish, i’ll just say that it’s a super tasty summer salad inspired by the flavours of tartare sauce.

it’s also *super* versatile (e.g. easily made vegetarian etc), and i’ll post some notes about that at the end of the recipe.

right, i can feel you all getting bored aha, let’s get started!

ingredients

for the mayonnaise (would super recommend making your own but if you cba just go with 250ml of shop bought mayo)

2 egg yolks

1/2 tsp english mustard

1 tsp white vinegar

juice of 1/2 a lemon

250ml rapeseed oil

salt and pepp to taste

for the salad (basically everything here you can take or leave depending on what you like)

4 heads of baby gem lettuce

4 hard boiled eggs

3 tbsp capers

handful of cornichons (or pickled cucumbers if you don’t have them)

handful of flat leaf parsely

handful of chives

100g baby new potatoes

1/2 red onion

8 anchovy fillets

handful of croutons

4 smoked mackerel fillets

for garnish

juice of 1/2 a lemon

glug of extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepp to taste

method

1. make the mayo by combining the eggs, vinegar, mustard and lemon juice in a bowl. whisk (ideally with an electric whisk/stand mixer) until uniform. then while whisking continuously, slowly drizzle in the rapeseed oil. season to taste.

2. bring a large pot of water to the boil. add 4 eggs (in their shells) and the potatoes. remove the eggs after 8 minutes and the potatoes after 15. rinse both under cold water on removal.

3. roughly chop the lettuce. quarter the eggs. tear the makerel fillets into chunks. finely chop the remaining salad ingredients.

4. put the lettuce in a large bowl. add 80% of the mayo and salad ingredients, plus a glug of olive oil and juice of half a lemon and toss. check the seasoning and transfer the salad to what you’re serving it in.

5. add the remaining mayo and salad ingredients on top, plus thin slices of lemon for presentation. aaaaaand ya done! enjoy!

some notes on variation

this recipe is super easy to customise to however you like it.

it’s easily made vegetarian by omitting the mackeral, and replacing the anchovies with a vegetarian worcestershire sauce like henderson’s relish. alternatively, something like liquid smoke to add savouriness would work too!

you could also easily make vegan by omitting the eggs too and using a vegan mayo!

and re: basically all the other salad ingredients, if you don’t want it or have it, just omit it. i promise you’ll still end up with a super delicious salad. i mean, if you look at the pics properly, you can see that i ran out of capers ahaha.