Steak Tartare Medium Rare Alan King Food

STEAK TARTARE (BEEF TARTARE)

Steps:

• Place the beef in the freezer for about 1 hour until the exterior begins to firm up and form crystals but it's still easily pierced with a knife. This will make it easier to finely hand-chop.
• Meanwhile, prep the shallot, capers, cornichons, and parsley in a small bowl, and set aside. In another small bowl whisk together the egg yolk, vinegar, mustard, oil, Worcestershire, and hot sauce.
• Remove the beef from the freezer, slice it thinly against the grain, then slice into fine strips, and then finally dice into small cubes, about ¼-inch across. Transfer the beef to a large mixing bowl and gently combine it with the shallot and caper mixture as well as the dressing. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed with salt, pepper, etc.
• Divide into 4 equal portions, press each portion into a round cookie cutter on a plate. Remove the ring and serve immediately, preferably with toast points/toasted baguette slices, fries and/or salad.

STEAK TARTARE

Steps:

• Cut the steak into 1-inch cubes and park in the freezer for 10 minutes.
• Whisk the vinegar, dry mustard and egg yolks together in a small bowl. Whisk continuously while streaming in the oil until emulsified, then whisk in the shallots, capers, salt, and roughly 2/3 of the celery leaves and parsley.
• Hand chop the meat to your desired texture. (Alternately, divide the meat into 4 batches and pulse each batch separately 3 to 4 times in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the standard S-blade.)
• With clean hands, quickly fold the meat and dressing together. Plate using a 3 3/4-inch pastry ring and garnish with the reserved herbs and lemon zest.

STEAK TARTARE, MEDIUM RARE (ALAN KING)

Steps:

• Combine egg yolk, olive oil, lemon juice, Worcester sauce, and mustard.
• Blend with a fork until mixture is smooth.
• Add sirloin and mix gently.
• Add capers, onion, egg and parsley.
• Add anchovy fillet and turn to mix.
• Add salt and pepper. You may not need any salt if the anchovy is very salty.
• Gently shape mixture into an oval patty.
• Melt butter in a skillet.
• When butter stops foaming, add meat patty.
• Saute briefly, about 3-4 minutes on each side, or until meat reaches medium-rare.
• Serve on buttered garlic toast.

STEAK TARTARE

Steps:

• Place the trimmed beef in the freezer for 20 minutes while you prep the rest of the ingredients. Meanwhile, butter the bread, wall to wall, then slather the mustard evenly among the two buttered slices. Finish each slice with a healthy schmear of the Vegemite.
• In a bowl, toss the red onion slices with a healthy pinch of salt, allowing the rings to separate, and soften a bit from the salting. Add the capers with a bit of their brine and the cress, celery leaves and parsley, and toss well, making a little salad.
• Working quickly, remove the meat from freezer. It will now be firm and easy to cut. Slice into 1/8-inch-thin slices. (We often wear doubled-up latex gloves to help keep the heat from our hands from transferring to the beef. The warmer the meat, the more difficult to cut beautifully. Also, this is the occasion for your sharpest knife.) Shingle the meat slices ever so slightly, and slice into 1/8-inch matchsticks.
• Turn your cutting board 180 degrees, and cut the matchsticks into 1/8-inch tiny dice, resembling the cut called brunoise.
• Transfer your elegantly hand-chopped meat to a glass, stainless or ceramic bowl, and season with the Worcestershire sauce, a couple pinches of coarse kosher salt and a few good grinds of black pepper, and toss together distributing the seasoning, using a fork.
• Distribute the seasoned beef evenly between the two slices of buttered, seasoned bread, and form into a patty, more or less, still using the fork. Arrange the salad over the beef artfully, distributing evenly between the two portions. Give the whole enterprise a healthy finishing grind of black pepper.
• Nestle each yolk, still in its half shell if using raw, into the mound, and let each guest turn the yolk out onto the tartare before eating. If using cooked yolk, microplane the yolk over the tartare to finish.