Looking at this photo I’m thinking “what a pretty little bowl!!”. Yes, I bought it in CoinCasa in Lucca, last summer. With the current coronavirus madness going on it’s looking unlikely we’ll go to Italy this year. Everyone’s staying home, schools are about to close, restaurants are doing it one by one. I had some grand plans for Florek’s 40th birthday, officially scraped them today. Or postponed them rather, no idea for how long.

Last Sunday together with Ewa we went to Lacock, a small place in Wiltshire, didn’t get to see much of it, as they weather sucked, but we had lunch in The Bell Inn. I’ve never had a better tartare sauce than there, with fish and chips. Creamy, light, not too sour, it was delicious. And yet I’ve never tried to make one! Never even made mayonnaise ffs! Today I dealt with this situation. My cute little kitchen aid mini food processor did most of the work, but it paved a nice, creamy way forward. I used a recipe I found online, from The Guardian if I’m not mistaken. As I tasted it and tasted it some more I ended up not quite following the recipe. My end product, alongside fish and chips this evening was a decent, 8 out of 10 sauce. It tasted better with the fish than on its own, unlike the one in Lacock, that I kept on licking long after I finished my fish.

So I started with 2 egg yolks( Charlie brought 27 eggs last night, seems his chickens have been panic laying!), 1 tbsp of dijon mustard ( ended up adding 1 more), a generous pinch of salt and then whizzed it till well combined, before I started slowly adding a mixture of olive oil and sunflower oil. In the future the olive oil will not be used for tartare, I don’t think I want to taste it. And I could this evening. So the recipe said 125 ml of each, I added maybe 180, before I decided it was thick enough. To loosen it I used some pickling water from the cornichons, 3 of which were finely chopped and added in, some capers, not too much, as I don’t really love them, some parsley and some chives. This recipe did not use any vinegar, I found it necessary and added about 2 screw tops of white wine vinegar, also a bit of sugar.

And that was that. It was enjoyed, even Iz tried some, intrigued by our comparing notes. To be continued! 🙂