tartar sauce recipe for seafood you make at home
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- October 27, 2022
- 800
Having a toddler in the house pretty much kills any notion of taking a trip longer than an hour or so.
I love the sea, and we try to get to a southeastern beach at least once a year — nothing too populated or commercialized, just a quiet stretch of sand to soak up the sun and listen to the incoming waves. I get this love of the ocean from my dad, who took us to Venice Beach, Florida a few times when I was a kid.
For whatever reason, a disproportionate number of fossilized shark’s teeth wash up on shore there, and that is how I spent my time, sifting through tiny shells in search of the blackened teeth of sharks who had perished millennia ago. I still have hundreds of teeth I collected and one large example I had made into a necklace there.
It seemed cool at the time, but you can’t exactly wear a shark-tooth necklace to the annual Amish Country Ball, now can you? It’s in a drawer around here somewhere.
Along with this love of salt water and air is a passion for devouring piles of crab legs. We’ve made them at home, but it’s not nearly as much fun as sliding a chair up to a weathered, thick table at a seaside bar, sipping beer and waiting for the boiled crab legs to arrive with soggy fries and slaw. I’d rather do that than sip espresso at a Paris cafe, unless you’re offering tickets to France and a free hotel, in which case my mind is open to change.
I’ve also been making crab cakes for years, following a recipe by Marian Morash, wife of PBS producer Russel Morash, who is responsible for all the innovative public programming of the last half century. I believe the couple had a small restaurant on Nantucket for a while, so one would think Ms. Morash’s crab cake recipe to be pretty definitive.
This was not the case. A dear friend gifted us with crab cakes shipped in from a Maryland restaurant, and now I know I didn’t know how to make crab cakes at all.
I have no idea how these were made, but eating them was one of those rare experiences bordering on religiosity. There were no detectable peppers or cracker crumbs to be found, and I am wondering if they just weren’t piles of the best lump crab available, bound with a little fragrant mayonnaise. I don’t know if I’ll ever make them again because I’ll never come close to that kind of perfect.
Having them gave me the chance to try a tartar sauce recipe from Bobby Flay. I know perfectly prepared crab cakes don’t need tartar or any other sauce, but that was something I needed to find out.
I was used to my own creation, mind you, which needed some sauce to pep them up. This recipe made a sauce that was equal to the amazing crab, and I will make it again and again, any time I’m making seafood. This recipe uses a pinch of saffron, which is expensive, but no more so than chicken wings these days.
“Tartar sauce” is a running joke in my family. My wife, reading a recipe, turned to me and asked, innocently, “What is ‘tartar sauce’ anyway?” Her mind had read the word phonetically, and she pronounced it “tar tar.” I answered, “What? Tarter sauce?” She immediately realized the silliness, and we had a good laugh. And now I have to point it out on any menu and say, “Look, they have that exotic tar tar sauce.” Cornichons are teensy pickles. Look for the smallest you can find.
SAFFRON TARTAR SAUCE
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
Pinch of saffron
1 1/2 cups real mayonnaise
1/2 small red onion, finely diced
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons drained and chopped capers
6 cornichons, finely diced
Grated zest of 1 lemon and juice of a half lemon
Kosher salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley
In a small saucepan, bring the white wine vinegar to a simmer and add the saffron threads. Remove from the heat and allow to steep for 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and cool completely in the refrigerator.
Whisk the remaining ingredients, except for the parsley, together and add the vinegar/saffron mixture. Combine well and let rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Stir in the parsley just before serving.