Steak Tartare

By Gabrielle Hamilton

Updated April 11, 2022

Steak Tartare
Gentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Amy Wilson.
Total Time
30 minutes (including time in the freezer)
Rating
4(371)
Comments
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The curative powers of raw meat are often cited and frequently lampooned — I’m thinking of the guy slumped back in his chair, after the brawl, with a fat raw steak on his mangled black eye. I can’t speak to that, but a hand-chopped mound of cold raw beef, seasoned perfectly, at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon on New Year’s Day, with a cold glass of the hair of the Champagne dog that bit you the night before, will make a new man out of you. The strong-flavored pumpernickel bread is a family nostalgia that has become a beloved preference. The butter and the Vegemite are personal eccentricities I happen to find exceptionally delicious.

Featured in: On Your Way to Your New Year’s Self

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Ingredients

Yield:2 servings
  • 8 to 10ounces highest-quality beef tenderloin, trimmed of all silver skin, fat flap, gristle — leaving nothing but dark red beef
  • 2tablespoons unsalted Irish butter, tempered to cool and spreadable
  • 2slices dense, unleavened black pumpernickel bread
  • 4teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • 2 to 4teaspoons Vegemite, per your taste
  • 1small, firm, shiny red onion, peeled and thinly sliced in rings
  • Coarse kosher salt
  • 2tablespoons capers, in brine
  • Watercress leaves from one bunch, stems saved for another use
  • Celery leaves from one bunch
  • 6sprigs parsley, roughly chopped — just 3 or 4 cuts with a chef knife
  • 2tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 2egg yolks, raw, or 1 if cooked
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (2 servings)

559 calories; 39 grams fat; 18 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 15 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 19 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 5 grams sugars; 34 grams protein; 993 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    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.

  2. Step 2

    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.

  3. Step 3

    Working quickly, remove the meat from freezer. It will now be firm and easy to cut. Slice into ⅛-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 ⅛-inch matchsticks.

  4. Step 4

    Turn your cutting board 90 degrees, and cut the matchsticks into ⅛-inch tiny dice, resembling the cut called brunoise.

  5. Step 5

    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.

  6. Step 6

    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.

  7. Step 7

    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.

Private Notes

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Ratings

4 out of 5
371 user ratings
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Comments

Boeuf

Eccentric, and doesn't quite get you there.

I don't see a recipe for steak tartare, I see an unfinished arrangement of raw beef placed on a slice of bread with a salad thrown on top.

Skip the odd salad (watercress and capers?), and the even odder bread (vegemite and Irish butter?), and find a classic recipe for steak tartare.

Lumita

I made an anchovy butter shmear using the paste, added a little lemon juice for some acidity, and substituted for the vegemite. Also rocket/arugula in the salad. An elegant presentation our guests enjoyed.

Weirdly, I thought these notes were intended to be helpful tips and other improvisations on the recipe, but the sanctimony and snark seems to be drowning most of that out. As for the toxoplasmosis and salmonella concerns - people, it's a raw beef recipe. Move along now.

Laura

You do understand that is GABRIELLE HAMILTON'S steak tartare? If you want to make a traditional version, by all means, go ahead. Why rip on a creative interpretation by a chef? How dull life would be if everyone made the same food the same way all the time.

SB

This is great. I loved it. I used white miso instead of vegemite. I used filet mignon. I ate it on a slice of dark rye, like a Danish smoorbrod. When I make this again, I may mix the egg yolk into the meat. And yes it did help my hangover. If you liked this, try Hamilton’s caviar egg sandwich.

Jo

I liked the butter-mustard bread idea. I did not use vegemite as I can’t bear it. Rather than put salad on top I just served with crudités, which was very tasty. If you don’t want to use the raw egg, a drizzle of olive oil works well instead.

Dianae

I was delighted to see Vegemite used in this recipe! Rarely get a chance to add this wonderful umami flavor in a recipe. I used flour “street taco” flour tortillas which worked well. I blended the egg yolk into the sirloin mince patties to simplify the work. Mixed the capers into the meat to keep them from rolling out of the taco. Used scallion mixed into the meat as well for easy handling. Results= DELICIOUS!

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