Steak Tartare

Steak tartare, that decadent appetizer, is a fixture of a great many restaurants. Why is that? As a retired chef and restaurant owner, the answer is obvious to me: economics. Beef is expensive and one of the most expensive items on the entire menu. Because it is so expensive, it is very hard—given what diners are willing to pay for a meal—very hard indeed to mark beef up to the extent that less expensive items can be marked up. So it is vital to sell every bit of that beef.

Steak Tartare, Egg Yolk, Cornichons

Think about it this way: all the trim and scrap off of the beef that I purchased cost the same $20 per pound as all the steak cuts. At that price, a restaurateur who wants to stay in business has got to find a way to cover some of the expense of the scrap meat. Steak tartare to the rescue. Ditto for tuna: when I would pay upwards of $20 a pound for #1 tuna, any little scrap was highly likely to end up as tartares. What a delicious way to recoup some of the expense!

Tartare isn't limited to beef. I've had delicious lamb kibbeh at Middle Eastern and Afghani restaurants and even served it at my own. On our tasting menu, we served tartares of elk, antelope, and yak. And during salmon season when we would get fresh king salmon flown in, the belly flaps and other trim would often end up minced and served as salmon tartare, a riff on sashimi. 

We Americans are not alone and we surely did not invent the concept: most cultures have a raw meat preparation that is similar to steak tartare. Think of crudo in South America, carpaccio in Italy, and yukhoe in Korea.

Tartare also is not limited to fully raw meat. Stepping out of the tartare rut, I would do mi-cuit (half-cooked) preparations in which I would briefly sear or grill the meat before chopping it. In France, if you sear a patty of tartare on both sides like a very rare hamburger, you call it steak aller-retour or tartare aller-retour ("steak round trip"). In addition, I used to cold smoke chopped tartare over ice at times. If you use a light hand, the smoke is a wonderful addition to tartare and really wonderfully unexpected to most diners.

I would also note that tartare is not limited to tenderloin. Of all the steak tartares that I have enjoyed at restaurants, my favorite beef version was made from skirt steak and my least favorite from tenderloin. My favorite lamb version was made from heart. Most people are squeamish about heart, but it is one of the cleanest, most flavorful cuts, albeit with a bit of chew. While most people lean toward the soft texture of tenderloin, I find it a bit mushy for my liking. I definitely prefer more texture to less.

As a trained food professional, I'd be remiss if I did not mention that eating any raw food is a risky proposition. E. coli is a very real thing as are other foodborne illnesses. Each person has to decide whether that risk is acceptable. For my part, I will only eat raw meat at a restaurant that I trust.

Capers, Minced Beef, Shallots, Mustard Prior to Mixing

Having run a restaurant, it is ingrained in me to use every single bit of every ingredient and so when I recently purchased a beef tenderloin, it was a no-brainer that we would soon be having steak tartare. When cutting the beef into steaks, I saved all the small bits of scrap from the tenderloin, plus the parts of either end that were too small to cut into steaks.

To make the tartare, I diced the pieces of tenderloin very fine with a knife. Yes, it takes a long time compared to running the meat through a grinder, but the two textures are incomparable. At the restaurant, we always cut the tartare with a knife and as long as we had the labor, we would cut it to order as the tickets came into the kitchen.

What you add to your tartare for flavorings is up to you, in the same way that what you add to your guacamole is up to you. For my part, I default to classic seasonings. I generally add capers, minced shallots, Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper as I did in this case. That said, tartare is a wonderful blank canvas that lends itself to experimentation. For example, a favorite from my restaurant days was a Korean-inflected tartare with minced kimchee, green onions, soy sauce, sesame seeds, sesame oil, and dobanjang.

Tartare is easy to make at home, especially if you are buying meat in bulk and breaking it down yourself. But beyond that, it is a really approachable and decadent restaurant-style appetizer to have in your home-cooking arsenal.