Eckart Witzigmann’s Beef Tartare, Beet, Caviar and Sturgeon

For the Beet Consommé

Ingredients

•  1 tbsp. neutral vegetable oil
• 85g red onions, diced
• 280g beet, diced
• 85g fennel, diced
• 8g garlic, diced
• 13g fresh ginger, diced
• 0.6g cardamom pods
• 0.4g allspice
• 1/2 star anise seed pod
• 1/2 a clove
• 0.2g mustard seeds
• 2.5g salt
• 0.4g Vadouvan spice mix from Ingo Holland
• 75ml Champagne
• 12g ketjap manis
• 1L beet juice
• 250g breast of veal
• 50g egg white
• Aged balsamic vinegar and light soy sauce
• 3 sheets gelatin

Method

1. Sautée the onions in vegetable oil.
2. Add the beet, fennel, garlic and ginger and sautée.
3. Add the spices, salt and the spice mix and fry for a few minutes, then deglaze with Champagne.
4. Add the ketjap manis and pour in the beet juice.
5. Simmer together for 4 hours, strain and refrigerate overnight.
6. Pass the breast of veal through a meat grinder and mix with the egg white.
7. Add the meat to the cold beet stock and slowly bring to the boil.
8. Skim off the egg white raft and strain the stock.
9. Reduce the beet consommé until it has a concentrated flavor, then season with aged balsamic vinegar, light soy sauce and salt.
10. Dissolve the soaked gelatin sheets in 500ml beet consommé and refrigerate for several hours.

For the Sturgeon Mousse

Ingredients

• 40g trimmings from smoked sturgeon (skin, belly flaps, bones)
• 250ml whole milk
• 1 pinch freshly grated lemon zest
• 13g soy sauce
• 3g salt
• 8g sushi seasoning
• 120g fillet smoked sturgeon
• 4g rapeseed oil, cold pressed
• 60g egg white
• 60g whipped cream

Method

1. Bring the sturgeon trimmings to the boil in the whole milk and leave to infuse for 1 hour.
2. Drain off the smoked sturgeon milk.
3. Season 200g of the sturgeon milk with the lemon zest, soy sauce, salt and the sushi seasoning.
4. Pour the mixture into a Pacojet beaker, then add the smoked sturgeon fillet and the rapeseed oil and freeze for 12 hours.
5. Put the frozen Pacojet beaker into a Pacojet and process the contents.
6. Freeze the sturgeon mixture again and pacolize a further 3 times.
7. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the sturgeon mixture together with the whipped cream.
8. Pour the sturgeon mousse into a rectangular pan around 1 cm deep and refrigerate for several hours.
9. Cut into 4 rectangles (7 cm x 2.5 cm) just before serving.

For the Beef Tartare

Ingredients

• 80g fresh beef (not vacuum sealed)
• 1 tbsp. finely diced shallot, freshly blanched
• 1 tsp. finely chopped chives
• Olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Cut the fresh beef fillet into small cubes.
2. Mix the meat with the blanched diced shallots and chives.
3. Season the tartare with olive oil, salt and freshly ground pepper and serve in 4 rings with a diameter of 4cm.

To Finish

Ingredients

• A variety of beets (blanched small slices of yellow beet, very thin slices of pickled baby beets, beet purée seasoned with pickling liquid, beet chips)
• Edible colorful flowers and leaves (borage, verbena, red-veined dock)
• 4 tbsp. Imperial caviar

Method

1. Place 1 sturgeon mousse on each of 4 deep plates.
2. Place 1 portion of beef tartare next to the sturgeon mousse.
3. Arrange small yellow beet slices and very thin slices of pickled baby beet on top of the sturgeon mousse and squirt cold beet puree and cold yellow beet purée on top.
4. Garnish with beet chips, colorful edible flowers and young red-veined dock leaves.
5. Place 1 tbsp. Imperial caviar on top of the beef tartare and pour around 100ml lightly gelled beet consommé onto the dish when serving at the table.

Recipe Courtesy of Eckart Witzigmann.

Image © Helge Kirchberger Photography / Red Bull Hangar-7