Behind the French Menu: steak tartare

from
Behind the French Menu
By
Bryan G. Newman

Steak Tartare -Bœuf Tartare

Steak Tartare, Bœuf Tartare- The steak in the manner of the Tartars, the famous and frightening fighters who rode to war under the direction of Genghis Khan beginning in the 13th century. Steak Tartar begins with uncooked ground or chopped beef. Despite the lack of a frying pan or grill, in France, this may be one of the greatest steak dishes that you have ever tasted. Steak Tartar is spiced beef made with steak.

Twentieth-century folklore has the Tartar tribesmen riding to war with raw meat under their horses' saddles. As they rode, the beef was tenderized and the riders were said to cut off pieces of the raw meat with a knife; they only stopped riding to sleep. Despite the name, Steak Tartar (Tartare) is far from any real Tartar culinary traditions.

Who were the Tartars

The Tartars became famous when the Mongols, in the 13th century, led by Genghis Khan had made the Tartars part of his army. Later the sons and grandsons of Genghis Khan would lead the Mongol invasions with the most feared fighters being the Tartars. At its height, these “hordes” ruled parts of Eastern Europe, all of Bulgaria, and large parts of Siberia. The Tartars were finally defeated by Russia in the 16^th century and their leaders who agreed to become Orthodox Christians became part of the Russian aristocracy.

Steak Tartar begins with uncooked ground or chopped beef. Despite the lack of a frying pan or grill, in France, this may be one of the greatest steak dishes that you have ever tasted. Steak Tartar is spiced beef made with steak.

Good Restaurant Theater

For those who enjoy good restaurant theater, some make an enjoyable show of mixing the tartare’s ingredients in front of the diners as there is no cooking involved. The French Steak Tartare is a spicy dish, but then for most UK and North American visitors, nothing in France is very spicy. You may request more or less Tabasco or Worcester sauce.

Your French menu may offer you:

Tartare de Boeuf (180g) et ses Condiments avec Frites Fraîches « Maison » et Salade - Beef Tartar (180g (6.5 oz)) with condiments. Served with fresh the restaurant’s special “homemade" French fries and salad.

The condiments for a steak tatar: While they vary with the chef they often include; shallots, capers, cornichons

Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, parsley, chives. An egg yolk (often served on top of the tartar), salt and freshly ground black pepper

Steak Tartare, Frites, Salade – Steak Tartar served with French fries and a small green salad.

Steak Tartare Bœuf Fin Gras du Mézenc Coupé au Couteau, Salade Verte et Pommes Sautées, – Steak Tartar, chopped with a knife, from the Bœuf Fin Gras du Mézenc AOC/AOP, one of France’s finest beef cattle. The steak is accompanied by a green salad and sautéed potatoes.

Steak Tatare
As eaten for breakfast by Sigmund Freud
According to the Blog: (From Jewish Viennese Food. Sigmund Freud was eating steak tartare for breakfast every day, a fact which his cook and long-time servant, Paula Fichtl, recorded in her diaries. (She was in the service of the Freud family from 1929 until the death of Anna Freud in 1982.)
Photograph and story courtesy of Jewish Viennese Food

Steak Tartare Servi Cru ou Juste Saisi - Steak Tatar prepared traditionally, uncooked, or very lightly fried.

Steak Tartare is traditionally served raw, but some diners, including many in France, prefer it juste saisi, or very lightly seared, while not wanting a hamburger, they do not want the meat completely raw. You'll find many restaurants offer this variation, sometimes even if it's not explicitly on the menu.

Juste Saisi : meaning just ready or lightly seared; a very important cooking term for meat, fish, seafood, and other products that must never be overcooked, or hardly cooked at all, to preserve their delicate texture and flavor.

Boeuf Tartare aux Couteaux – Steak Tatar sliced with a knife. While it may seem obvious that a steak Tatar will be sliced, a medium to lower-priced restaurant may want to make it clear that their Tartare is not simply ground beef. Part of a great Tartare is the texture, and hand-cutting provides the best.

Tartare de Cheval - A horse meat Tatar. Horse meat has always had its devotees who enjoy its slightly sweeter meat, and that is true of other European countries, with Italy leading; other countries where horse meat is popular include Spain, Sweden, Belgium and Switzerland. Horse meat is controlled in France, and animals from racing, etc, will not enter the food chain. In an area where horsemeat is popular, you may see a Boucherie Chevaline or a Boucherie Hippophagique, a horsemeat butcher.

N.B. Don't confuse steak à cheval with Tartare de Cheval; they are entirely different dishes. A Steak à Cheval is a beef steak topped with a fried or poached egg.

Tartare de Cheval
A horse meat Tartare
Photograph courtesy of Trip Advisor.

Ordering a Steak Tartare with an English or a North American accent.

From my experience, if you're an English-speaking visitor ordering Steak Tartare in a French restaurant, be ready for a moment of clarification from your server. On more than one occasion, I've had a server—and even the maître d'—kindly but firmly double-check if I understood that the dish is not cooked.

I asked why they were so concerned with my choice. It turned out that in this establishment, somewhat on the fringes of the usual tourist routes, there have been overseas guests who ordered this dish without any idea of what steak tartar was. They had to have their steak tartar cooked and ended up with a hamburger minus the buns.

Steak Tartare at an Apéro – An invitation to a drink, an apéritif, but not a dinner invitation. An Apéro is a social gathering with light snacks. An invitation is typically verbal, with a set time, and it's polite to arrive no more than ten minutes late. Crisps, nuts, bite-sized sausages or open sandwiches that may include Steak Tartare. An apéro will usually be over within an hour

Steak Tartare open sandwiches,
Photograph courtesy of Raj Taneja at Flickr.

The history of uncooked (raw) meat dishes goes back thousands of years, but for restaurant menus and recipe books its about 125 years.

The earliest printed recipe for an uncooked meat dish that I've found is from Georges Auguste Escoffier’s 1903 Le Guide Culinaire. The recipe, called Beefsteak à l'Américaine (Steak in the American manner), is very similar to today's Steak Tartare, including capers, onions, parsley, and a raw egg yolk on top.

To be clear, the name Beefsteak à l’Américaine doesn't actually mean the recipe is American. In the 19th century, it was common practice in French cuisine to name new dishes and sauces after countries simply because it sounded exotic or appealing. That explains names like Sauce Hollandaise and Sauce Espagnole. By the 1930s, however, menus began listing the dish as Steak Tartare or Bœuf Tartare, and so ownership of the dish was moved from the Americans to the Tatars.

The recipe for Beefsteak à l’Américaine is on page 615.
Photograph courtesy of Gallica
The dish appeared as Steak Tartare in the 1938 edition
of Prosper Montagnes’ Larousse Gastronomique on page 134

Chopped veal and beef dishes elsewhere have been influenced by the French Beefsteak à l'Américaine or the Italian dish Carne Cruda alla Piemontese, from the Piedmonte region in Italy as Alba. Many countries had spiced chopped meat dishes and while the names may have changes Poland also lays claim to Steak Tatar with Befsztyk Tatarski.

The recipes for Tatare spread to fish, seafood, fruit and vegetables.

Tartare de Saumon Épicé – Spicy Salmon Tartar. Unlike Steak Tartare, there is no agreed recipe covering this dish; however, most recipes use spicy sesame oil made from roasted sesame seed, uncooked tomatoes, cornichons for the crunch, and onions. Some recipes add ginger, and others Worcester sauce or Tabasco.

Tartare de Thon Rouge - Tuna Tartar. Both French and French-Japanese restaurants offer this dish. I have enjoyed more than one version, including an excellent Temaki Tuna Tartare very similar to the picture below.

Temaki de Tartare de Thon au Jambon Cru et aux Tomates
A tuna temaki with cured ham and tomatoes
Photograph and recipe Atelier Des Chefs.

Vegetable Tartare – Vegetarian and vegan Tartar dishes may also be on the menu. The recipes include crunchy fresh vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, beetroot and possibly radishes or fresh horseradish for spice. Holding the vegetables together will be a flavored mayonnaise, and in France, cornichons will be there for their taste and crunch. In France, the mayonnaise will nearly always be freshly made.

Vegetable Tatar
Photograph courtesy of Trip Advisor.

Your menu may also offer dessert Tartars:

Fruit tartar, red fruit coulis, mascarpone

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