Cold Tartar sauce, which belongs to French cuisine, can serve as an excellent alternative to mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup. There are many options for its preparation, and they all have common advantages - an exquisite taste with a minimum number of ingredients and ease of preparation. The snack may include salmon, turkey, beef, cheese, sour cream, tomatoes, mayonnaise and other ingredients. A widely popular recipe for Tartar sauce with pickles is an excellent addition to most meat and fish dishes.
Subtleties of preparing Tartar sauce with pickles
Tartar sauce with the addition of pickles is available for preparation at home, as it does not contain exotic or expensive ingredients. The technology used is reminiscent of the process of making homemade mayonnaise. It involves whipping vegetable oil with egg yolk and aromatic spices until smooth, followed by adding additional ingredients - cucumbers, herbs, tomatoes and mushrooms.
The task can be simplified by using some ready-made ingredients - for example, mayonnaise or sour cream as a base.
Required Ingredients
The set of ingredients for homemade Tartar sauce with pickled cucumbers may vary depending on the preparation method.
The first method is more time-consuming and labor-intensive, but it will delight you with the improved taste properties of the product.
The following ingredients will be required:
- 3-5 pickled cucumbers (medium size, with uniform color and dense consistency);
- 2 tablespoons of refined vegetable oil;
- 3 boiled chicken eggs (only yolks are used);
- one tablespoon each of prepared mustard and lemon juice;
- several sprigs of herbs - dill, basil, parsley, as well as a couple of green onions.
The second version of Tartar sauce with pickles, garlic, mayonnaise and sour cream is more economical, simple and quick to prepare. It requires:
- 3-5 medium sized cucumbers;
- 60 milliliters each of sour cream and mayonnaise;
- 5 sprigs of dill;
- 3 cloves of garlic.
In both versions, you can add salt and pepper, the amount of which depends on taste preferences.
Product selection and preparation
For Tartar sauce, you should choose pickles that are approximately the same size and have a dense, uniform consistency. They must be thoroughly crushed to a homogeneous viscous mass.
The eggs need to be hard-boiled, cooled, peeled, and then the yolks separated.
As for vegetable oil, you need to choose refined oil - with a transparent consistency and without any foreign odor.
Cooking process
Preparing homemade Tartar sauce with pickles includes several successive steps:
- First of all, you need to properly prepare the egg yolks. They should be crushed so that their consistency resembles dough. To do this, grate the yolks on a fine grater or pass through a strainer and mash thoroughly with a fork.
- Then, alternately add the required amount of mustard and vegetable oil to a container with crushed egg yolks.
- Beat all components well until the mixture acquires a homogeneous consistency. A mixer or whisk can be used for this.
- Add freshly squeezed lemon juice to the resulting mass.
- Lightly salt the mixture and add a few peas of allspice, then be sure to mix.
- Now it's time for cucumbers. Without peeling, they must be cut with a sharp knife into the smallest pieces possible.
- Finely chop all types of greens, add to the rest of the ingredients and mix again until perfectly homogeneous.
In order to save time, you can choose a simplified method and prepare Tartar sauce on a mayonnaise-sour cream base. In this case, the technology is as follows:
- Using a whisk or a tablespoon (you can use a wooden one), mix the mayonnaise with sour cream until the mixture becomes homogeneous.
- Cut the cucumbers into miniature squares.
- Mash the garlic cloves using a hand garlic press.
- Chop the greens and add to the mixture.
- To add a spicy aroma to the sauce, add a few peas of allspice.
- Intensively mix the components to obtain a homogeneous composition.
- Take a sample of the prepared sauce and add salt if necessary. This preparation option does not require the separate addition of lemon juice and mustard, because these components are already contained in mayonnaise.
Tartare with pickles is served in an elegant sauce boat. If you plan to use it later, you need to put the product in a glass jar of a suitable size, close the lid and put it in the refrigerator.
Storage periods and rules
Homemade pickled cucumber tartar sauce is not intended for long-term storage. In a glass container with a tightly closed lid, it can be kept in the refrigerator for a maximum of one week. However, the optimal shelf life of the sauce is two days - after this period, the original taste properties are gradually lost.
