How to make steak tartare
Three things decide a tartare: the cut you buy, how cold you keep it, and how late you dress it. Everything else is preference.
Buy the right cut, and tell the butcher why
Go to a butcher, not a chiller cabinet, and say out loud that the beef will be eaten raw. That sentence changes what they hand you and how they handle it. Buy a whole piece — never pre-minced beef, for reasons of both texture and safety.
Tenderloin is the soft option: very tender, very mild, and the reason a lot of restaurant tartare tastes of dressing rather than beef. Rump, topside or sirloin have more to say and only need a sharper knife. Whatever you buy, it should be deep red, dry to the touch and smell of nothing much at all.
The one rule: keep it cold
Raw beef that warms up loses everything. The texture slackens, the fat smears, and the clean mineral flavour turns flat within minutes. Every professional kitchen that does this well is fanatical about temperature, and at home it is the single easiest thing to get right.
Chill the bowl, the board and the serving plates. Put the beef in the freezer for twenty to thirty minutes before cutting — not to freeze it, just to firm the edges so the knife behaves. Work quickly, and if it starts to soften, put everything back in the fridge for five minutes.
Classic steak tartare
Ingredients
- 300 g whole-muscle beef (tenderloin, rump or topside), well trimmed
- 1 egg yolk for the dressing, plus 1 to serve on top (optional)
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp capers, rinsed and roughly chopped
- 3 cornichons, finely chopped
- 1 small shallot, very finely diced
- 1 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 3–4 dashes Tabasco
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Fine salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Toasted sourdough or fries, to serve
Method
- Chill everythingPut the mixing bowl, the chopping board and the serving plates in the freezer for fifteen minutes. Put the beef in for twenty to thirty minutes, until the outside is firm but not frozen.
- Trim the beefCut away every exterior surface, along with any silverskin, sinew or hard fat. You want only clean interior muscle, which is both the best-tasting part and the part that was never exposed to contamination.
- Cut it by handSlice the beef into planks about 3 mm thick, stack them, cut into batons, then turn and dice to roughly 3 mm. Use a sharp knife and press down rather than dragging — sawing crushes the fibres and starts the slide towards paste.
- Make the dressing separatelyIn the chilled bowl, whisk the egg yolk with the Dijon, Worcestershire, Tabasco and olive oil until glossy. Stir in the capers, cornichons, shallot and parsley. Do not add the beef yet.
- Combine at the last momentFold the beef through the dressing with a spatula, lifting rather than mashing, until just coated. Season with salt and pepper now — salting earlier draws out moisture and dulls the meat.
- Taste and correctTaste immediately. It should read salty, sharp and faintly hot, with the beef still clearly the loudest thing in the mouth. Correct with salt, a little more caper brine for acid, or Tabasco for heat.
- Plate and serve at onceShape loosely on the chilled plates — a ring mould gives height but pressing it tight ruins the texture. Add the extra yolk on top if using, and serve immediately with hot toast or fries.
The Swedish version
For råbiff, drop the Worcestershire and Tabasco and rebuild around the Swedish pantry: raw egg yolk in the centre rather than in the dressing, capers, finely diced raw onion and pickled beetroot, with the mustard bound into a dijonnaise rather than stirred in neat.
The modern Stockholm restaurants push it further — shaved hard cheese doing the salt, a sweet root vegetable doing what the cornichon used to, and a crunch that is a nut or a crisped rye rather than a chip. If you want to see where that leads, the Stockholm ranking on this site is a map of it.
Four mistakes that ruin it
Grinding instead of cutting. A mincer crushes and smears; the result is uniform, wet and dull, and no amount of seasoning brings back bite. If you have no patience for dicing, partially freeze the beef and it cuts almost by itself.
Dressing too early. Acid and salt start working on raw protein immediately — leave a tartare sitting for twenty minutes and it goes grey at the edges and mealy in the middle. Mix at the last possible second.
Wet garnishes. Capers and cornichons must be drained and patted dry, and anything watery should be left out entirely. Liquid pooling under the meat is the fastest way to a sad plate.
Over-dressing. The most common restaurant failure on this whole site is burial — truffle, cheese or sauce turned up until the beef becomes texture rather than flavour. Under-season and correct upwards; you cannot take it back out.