Aishling Moore: A great sauce can make or break a dish – here's my warm tartar sauce recipe

Warm tartar sauce is a classical act

Aishling Moore's Hake with warm tartar sauce. Picture: Noel Sweeney

The sauce on any given plate of food can be what makes or breaks a dish. A great sauce can offer acidity and/or depth, a ‘taste of more’, and it is the principle component of what transforms multiple ingredients on a plate into a comprehensive dish.

A professional maker of sauce in classical French cookery was referred to as a saucier. It was considered one of the most respected positions in Escoffier’s kitchen brigade. Though very few kitchens implement Escoffier’s structure nowadays, sauce making is taken just as seriously.

Many of the best sauces you’ll eat in restaurants today are the result of more than 24 hours of cooking time. Often the last task of the day for a kitchen team is to fill the ovens with bones and vegetable trimmings to be slowly roasted overnight, ready to be infused in stocks the following morning.

This weekend’s warm tartar sauce is not quite as laborious, though it does include techniques of classical sauce making.

It starts with a solid base of good stock, which will allow you to build layers of flavour as the sauce cooks. For every fish stock I make, I’ll use flat fish bones. They produce a stock with good clarity and unrivalled flavour.

Just take it handy to begin with, not adding too much butter at a time. Controlling the temperature is crucial at this step — too hot and the sauce will split, too cold and it won’t emulsify. If the sauce does happen to split, just add a splash of cold cream and give it a whisk. This should bring it back.

The finely chopped gherkins, capers, shallot, and herbs finish the sauce with body and brightness and is very ‘classique’.

Hake with warm tartar sauce

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

The butter must be cold to easily emulsify into the sauce. The reduced cream added prior to the butter will aid this emulsification.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 20 mins

Cooking Time

 25 mins

Total Time

 45 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• For the hake

• 4x 130g fillets of hake

• (skin on and pin-boned)

• 3 tbsp rapeseed oil

• Fine sea salt

• For the tartar sauce

• 2 tbsp rapeseed oil

• 100g fish bones

• 1 onion, sliced

• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed

• 100ml white wine

• 100ml cream

• 150g cold butter, diced

• 1 shallot, finely diced

• 2 large gherkins, finely diced

• 1 tbsp capers, finely chopped

• 1 tbsp chopped chervil

• 1 tbsp chopped dill

• 1 lemon

Method

1. To make the tartar sauce, place a medium-sized pot on moderate heat. Warm the rapeseed oil and add the fish bones. Cook until lightly golden then add the onion and garlic.

2. Cook for three minutes then add the white wine.

3. Bring to the boil and reduce by half.

4. Add 500ml of cold water and bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes.

5. Pass the stock through a fine sieve and place in a clean medium-sized pot.

6. Return to the heat and reduce by half (to about 200ml).

7. Add the cream and reduce by half. Drop the heat to low and begin to add the cubes of butter, swirling the pan to emulsify as you do.

8. Allow the sauce to emulsify each time before adding any more butter. Once all the butter is added and the sauce has emulsified, remove from the heat and add the gherkin, capers, herbs, the juice, and zest of a lemon.

9. Taste to adjust seasoning and keep warm while cooking the hake.

10. For the hake

11. Preheat your frying pan on a medium-high heat for two minutes. Season the fish with fine sea salt.

12. Add the rapeseed oil before placing the hake in the pan,laying the fillet skin side down and away from you.

13. Once in the pan, do not disturb. Allow the skin of the fillet to caramelise. Once the fish is cooked 60% of the way, confidently lift the fillet from the pan using a fish slice and place on a tray.

14. Place in a 200˚C preheated oven to finish cooking for between 4 to 5 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

Fish tales

Remove the fish from the fridge 15 minutes before you begin cooking. This will allow for more even cooking.

Pat dry any excess moisture from the fish before seasoning with sea salt. This will help prevent the fish from sticking to the pan and also limit oil splatters.

Carbon steel frying pans are my preference for cooking fish. They are excellent conductors of heat and require very little upkeep.

Make sure you’re using a pan that’s large enough for the number of portions you’re cooking. Avoid overcrowding the pan, each addition to a cooking surface reduces the temperature of the pan. Work in batches if needs be.

This sauce would be fabulous served with pretty much any fish, so take a recommendation from your fishmonger.