Smoked herring tartare with fava beans & lime
Smoked fish salad
This recipe from Amélie Darvas at Hai Kai is "tartare" like you've never had it before-she starts with smoked fish and pairs it with a swoosh of crème fraîche sparked with Meyer lemon. The smoke, herbs, cream, and acidity (Meyer lemon juice and lime juice) produce waves of flavor.
I like to add arugula to make a more substantial salad, maybe some croutons for crunch
Ingredients
- Coarse sea salt
- 8 ounces (250 g) fava beans in the pod (see Note), shelled (½ cup/125 g)
- 2 tablespoons crème fraîche or sour cream
- ½ tablespoon fresh Meyer lemon juice
- Fine sea salt
- 8 ounces (250 g) smoked fish, such as herring or blue fish, skinned and cut into ¼-inch (6-mm) pieces
- 2 tablespoons micro or baby basil leaves
- 2 tablespoons micro or baby amaranth or spinach leaves
- 2 tablespoons herb oil
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- Freshly ground pepper
- Piment d'Espelette (or any mild chilli flakes)
Instructions
- Fill a small bowl with half ice, half cold water.
- In a small saucepan of boiling salted water, blanch the fava beans for 1 minute.
- Drain the favas and add to the ice water to cool for 1 minute.
- Drain again, then peel them.
- In a small bowl, whisk the crème fraîche with the lemon juice.
- Season with fine salt.
- In a medium bowl, combine the favas with the smoked fish, basil, amaranth, herb oil, and lime juice and gently toss to coat.
- Season with fine salt, pepper, and piment d'Espelette.
- Spoon the tartare in a line down the center of each plate.
- Spoon the lemon cream next to the tartare and serve.
Notes
- You can skip the blanching and peeling of the fava beans in Step 1 if you use 3 ounces (90 g) thawed frozen baby peas (about ½ cup/125 ml).
- The peeled favas and the lemon cream can be refrigerated separately overnight.
- if you don't have herb oil, just make a vinaigrette using lime juice instead of vinegar
- add some finelay grated lemon zest to the crème fraîche