Background: Back around the turn of the century, I worked in some restaurants as a low-level cook. One of them was a fusion place that served fried oysters with a version of this tartar sauce and a dab of Sriracha on top. One bite would change the way I think about fruit for the rest of my life. Rather than seeing fruit as the thing my mom packed in my lunch to balance out the cold cuts and chips, I started to see fruit as an ingredient. It could change the taste, texture, sweetness, color of my favorite foods. It’s not a recipe. We’re not cooking yet. It’s a series of moves that might be combined with other moves to make a meal.
- Keep in stock several jars of capers in your pantry. They don’t have to be fancy.
- Keep in stock chipotles in adobo sauce in your pantry.
- Stock a couple of large (I use 30 ounce) jars of mayo in your pantry. I use Duke’s.
- If you keep fresh lemons on hand, great. If not (or if you want a backup) keep some lemon juice in the freezer.
- Grab a Granny Smith apple next time you buy fish at the store. (This works with every fish and shellfish I’ve tried. It can be frozen if that’s the best fish your have access to. I’ve even tried it with canned fish.)
- When you feel like eating the fish, do the following moves first: take out about a cup of mayo out of the jar and put it in another container.
- Chop up one or two of the chipotles and mix it in with the mayo you took out of the jar. You are doing this for two reasons: to make room to make the sauce in the mayo jar and to make a second spicy sauce.
- Dice the apple as fine as you can.
- Drain the capers into another jar and save the liquid for quick pickles.
- Add the whole bottle of capers and the whole diced apples to the mayo and stir well with a rubber spatula.
- Chop up any herbs you want to include and fold those into the jar with the spatula. I often use wild onion and cilantro. Granulated garlic and chives works great, too.
- Give it a squeeze of lemon juice.
- Serve on or with any fish.
Why it Works:
- Capers are a great way to add acidity and a pickle-thing without having to cut up pickles or use premade relish. They keep their shape and flavor and make for a great texture. They are easy to store and relatively cheap.
- You can use any hot sauce or pepper for this step.
- Of course you could (and should) make your own aioli and try these ingredients in it. It will be great. But that’s not what this is about.
- I keep both fresh lemons and frozen lemons on hand so if the fresh ones get used up, I’ll always have something to brighten the sauce.
- The great thing about this recipe is that it preserves the apple indefinitely. You will use all the sauce before the ingredients go bad.
- This condiment will keep for a while. You might just want to have it on hand so that when you come home with a fresh piece of fish, you already have the sauce made.
- As mentioned above, any hot sauce or pepper can be used to make a spicy mayo. I like to use canned chipotle peppers and split them between this move and a chipotle ketchup that I make from accumulated ketchup packets. When I’m done, I have 3 quick versatile sauces that can be used for a number of things.
- Dice it fine so the mayo can be spread on a sandwich.
- The caper brine is great for pickling things like cactus flower buds or onion flower buds. (You know, since a caper is a pickled flower bud.)
- The rubber spatula (or even better, spoonula) should fit through the mouth of the jar and all the way to the bottom of the jar. If you don’t have multiple sizes of rubber spatulas, you should.
- Dill would be a natural choice here, but I avoid it because it’s kind of one-note to me. If I put dill in it, I feel like it only goes with fish. With other choices, I keep it open for things like a quick turkey sandwich.
- The lemon adds the acidity, but don’t overdo it. You want it to remain mayonnaise consistency.
- One of my favorite things to do with this is–after a great meal of trout or salmon–mix the leftovers with the sauce like tuna salad for a great sandwich the next day. You could add some celery or a hard-boiled egg, but it doesn’t need anything. Sometimes, I’ll throw in a can of smoked trout or tuna if there aren’t enough leftovers of the fresh fish.
Mods:
- You can add more things to this without messing it up. A huge range of herbs would work, as would roasted garlic, shallots, or other alliums.
- You can add it to a wide range of things in addition to fish sandwiches. I’ve used it on turkey burgers, etc. I think of it more as a mayo than a tartar sauce. You know how mayo works.
- You could make it because you are planning to have fish. But you can also make it because you have 3/4 of an apple that your kid didn’t eat. (It doesn’t have to be a granny smith, but I like the tartness they bring.) The sauce will keep the apple from oxidizing.