Susan Jung’s recipe for veal tartare – elegant, easy to make and the perfect starter
Veal tartare with pickled shallot, finger lime and parmesan-paprika palmiers is impressive enough to serve at a dinner party
This is a pretty, elegant and easy-to-make starter for a dinner party. The pickled shallots and parmesan-paprika palmiers can be made several days in advance. You can prepare the ingredients for the veal tartare a couple of hours before serving, but be sure to store the hand-chopped meat in the coldest part of the refrigerator.
Veal tartare with pickled shallots, finger limes and parmesan-paprika palmiers
Because veal is leaner than beef, tartare made with this meat is lighter in texture and flavour than the more common steak version. For this reason, I omit some of the usual seasonings used for steak tartare, such as Tabasco, mustard and Worcestershire Sauce. Use veal from humanely reared animals.
Finger limes – a type of citrus from Australia – might be difficult to find (I bought them at City’super). Also called “citrus caviar” because the juice vesicles are round and pop gently in the mouth, finger lime adds a lovely crunch to the veal tartare. If you can’t find these limes, mix in the finely grated zest of one lemon to the veal at the same time you add the salt: the flavour will be different, but delicious nevertheless.
The pickled shallots should be made at least one day in advance.
For the pickled shallots:
10 grams fine sea salt
10 grams granulated sugar
100ml rice vinegar
150 grams shallots