yer sew sirius: Appetizers for the holidays

When Kay Orr was Governor of Nebraska, her husband, Bill, produced a book called The First Gentlemen's Cookbook (Jacob North Printing Company, 1989). This book is kindly on loan to me by my husband's mother. A certain recipe caught my eye. Steak Tartare.

Okay, so my husband once told the tale of eating at a place here in this city (now defunct--the restaurant, not the city) called The Lincoln Exchange. It was in downtown Lincoln and later became Julio's (also now defunct). He ate there with a woman who became his second wife. He described the Steak Tartare as being sort of salad-like, as in served on a bed of lettuce or something. Anyway, he became violently sick soon after eating it, and one can completely understand why; here's an appetizer version (with comments), as presented in the aforementioned cookbook:

STEAK TARTARE

The only way to make this is by using good lean meat with NO fat. Credit [!!!] for the recipe goes to the chef at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans.

Larry Myers, President

Commercial Computer Systems

Lincoln, NE

1 lb. extra lean ground beef [you're going to fry it and drain off even the bitlets of grease, right? alas, no]

2 tsp. Grey Poupon Dijon mustard

2 tsp. capers [husband is over the moon about these; must have caught his eye when he read the dish's description on the menu. Obviously he missed the part about the RAW hamburger. But of course, he ate this in the early '80s. There probably weren't so many warning signs posted in restaurants about the dangers of eating uncharred meat]

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. red wine vinegar

4 anchovy filets [not really???--oh no]

juice of 1/2 lemon

chopped parsley for garnish

salt and pepper

1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 egg yolk [WHAT?]

Tabasco sauce to taste

To begin, put pepper and salt in a bowl (to your taste). Add capers, onions and anchovies and finely crush. Add lemon juice, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, egg yolk and Tabasco and mix.

Now add olive oil and wine vinegar and mix. Finally, add ground beef and toss till well blended.

Serve with melba toast or plain crackers. [Find a toilet, or a bucket, or a towel--whatever--for inevitable later use]

[These are the First Gentlemen's notes following the recipe] WDO: Larry is the kind of guy who usually is hesitant about expressing an opinion or taking a position on a particular subject [because he's sort of nauseous a lot of the time]. Some of his friends, including yours truly, have been able to draw him out [of the bathroom], and we find Larry has some pretty definite ideas on a number of subjects. Larry is in his "second" career, the first having been spent as a CPA.