As someone who enjoys diving into a nice tartare at a restaurant (as well as making them at home), I’ll basically try anything once, including tomato tartare. This version was from a recipe I came across online, and while it was nice, I have to be honest and admit that I really haven’t made it since. It’s a great recipe if you can go to an awesome farm stand and get things like fresh tomatoes and watermelon at the same time, but even I can admit that most of us don’t have the luxury of time to be doing that on a regular basis.
When I first received Vegetables Unleashed years ago, I flagged José’s tomato tartare as one to try eventually, but I never really got around to it because he encourages you to use peak-summer tomatoes and frankly, it’s usually too damn hot in my apartment to run an oven for several hours, even at 250 degrees. We’re in a nice balance at the moment that our building hasn’t flipped from being on the cool side to being warm all the time, but once that happens (usually by early June going by recent years), that oven doesn’t come on until late September unless we’re dealing with some sort of cold snap. By that time, my mind has already started focusing on making pizza again, and so this recipe gets neglected.
Here’s the thing, though: the hothouse tomatoes that are grown year-round? One of the things they are truly good at is being slowly roasted or oven-dried, because that low and slow heat will concentrate their flavors, and in this recipe specifically they will get tossed with some pretty intensely savory ingredients anyway. This isn’t about eating The Best Tomato, it’s about tricking you into thinking you’re eating meat when you’re in fact eating a tomato. This was a recipe from El Bulli originally, and per Jose’s headnotes, that was the objective of this dish.
He calls for HP sauce–a brown sauce that is essentially the UK’s A-1 steak sauce–and Savora mustard. We don’t keep steak sauce of any kind in our fridge, so I used some Worcestershire instead, but I caved and bought a jar of the Savora because we do like lots of mustards. This might be my favorite, as it’s a Dijon that’s been brought to 11 with the inclusion of more spices that make it intensely savory, and I cannot help but stan.
The other main change from the VU recipe is that I eliminated the cucumber. For me, plain cucumber doesn’t really fit from either a taste or texture perspective, as it’s not like you’re going to see cucumber in a classic steak tartare, and that’s what this is meant to replicate. Some finely diced kosher dill pickle could be tasty and I might try that the next time I do this, but I didn’t miss that ingredient this time around.
Tartare traditionally comes with an egg yolk on top, and while that’s great with beef, it’s less great with vegetables. Homemade mayo, on the other hand, also uses egg yolks, and we were going to have some anyway to go with some wings later that evening, so I figured let’s have it and let’s make it spicy. It’s a riff on the chili mayo from the late, great Num Pang in New York, just made with scratch. I also had a chunk of pancetta in my fridge, and wanting to use it up, M diced it up for me and I rendered it over low heat until it was crispy.
I’m also fully on-board with serving tartare with potato chips. Toast is fine, but a good kettle-cooked chip is sublime here, but keep it simple on the flavor front. A simple sea salt chip goes a long way and serves as an excellent delivery mechanism.
Tomato tartare with chili mayo
Adapted from Vegetables Unleashedby José Andrés, Num Pang Kitchen by Ratha Chaupoly, Ben Daitz, and Raquel Pelzel, as well as “Hittin’ the Sauce II” from Good Eats
- 3 ½ lbs tomatoes, either beefsteak or vine tomatoes
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 TB minced shallots
- 1 TB minced scallions, plus more for garnish
- 1 ½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tsp Savora mustard (yes, this is worth it)
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tsp chili mayo (recipe to follow)
- Potato chips, for serving
- 4 oz pancetta cubes, for garnish (optional)
Blanch the tomatoes: bring a medium saucepan filled with water to boil, and score the bottom of each tomato with an X. When the water boils, prepare a large bowl as an ice bath before blanching any tomatoes. Working in batches, place each tomato into the boiling water and let blanch for about 30 seconds to 90 seconds, depending on the size of the tomato. Remove from the water and plunge into the ice bath. Repeat with the remaining tomatoes. When cool to touch, peel the tomatoes.
To oven-dry the tomatoes: preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and cut the peeled tomatoes into wedges, removing the seeds/membranes. Place them in a bowl and season them with the salt and the sugar, tossing well to combine, and then lay out on the baking sheet in a single layer. When the oven is ready, place them in the oven and let them bake for three hours, turning with tongs once or twice to allow all sides to dry out, until the tomatoes are quite dry. Remove from the oven and let cool, and then dice the tomatoes.
If you want to garnish with some pancetta, slowly cook it in a medium pan over medium low heat until crispy, drain on a paper towel and reserve the pancetta for another use.
In a medium bowl, combine the tomatoes with the shallots, scallions, Worcestershire, and mustard, and stir to combine. Season to taste with the kosher salt and black pepper. If you’d like, pour the tartare into a pastry ring for serving, or put into a small bowl. Dollop the top with some chili mayo and serve with potato chips.
Chili mayo
Adapted from Num Pang Kitchen by Ratha Chaupoly, Ben Daitz, and Raquel Pelzel, as well as “Hittin’ the Sauce II” from Good Eats
Makes approximately ½ cup
- ½-¾ cup canola or grapeseed oil
- 1 egg yolk
- Pinch dry mustard powder
- ¾ tsp lemon juice, plus more if needed
- ¾ tsp rice wine or tarragon vinegar
- 1 TB sambal oelek
- Kosher salt to taste
In a small glass bowl, add the egg yolk, the dry mustard, the lemon juice, and the vinegar and whisk with a little bit of the oil. Continuously whisking the mixture, slowly stream the oil into the bowl as an emulsion forms, adding a little more lemon juice if needed. Add the sambal, stir to combine, and then season to taste with kosher salt.
The Manhattan [food] Project 