Danish Tartar Sauce : Remoulade
By: Karen E Lesney
Published: Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 1:08am

Ingredients




1 cup mayonnaise (made with olive oil)
3/4 cup white onion, finely chopped
3/4 cup kosher pickles, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
curry powder (to taste+ color)
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
dash of salt (to taste)

Preparation

1 NOTE: Remember that the main goal of this recipe is a balance of taste and textures to the palette. So, let's begin:
PREP: Chop onion, pickles and parsley and set aside in small bowls and add mayonnaise to a small mixing bowl as shown above. 2 COLOR: This part may seem a bit tricky only because I have not stated the amount to use for the curry powder.  But, this is how I do it since the intensity of the powder may vary with age and type.  There are two goals that I am aim for here.  One is color and the other is taste. However, in this early stage color is my motivation.  So, I only take the color near to what I want it to be making sure the taste is not too dominate.  This color should be a very light yellowish-green. 3 Next, add the dry mustard (hold off on the salt until you have added the other ingredients as the brine flavor from pickles might do just the trick). 4 TEXTURE: This part is the fun part for me since now we will begin to add the chopped ingredients a little at a time.  First, add some parsley - about half and mix. Second, add some onion and pickles to the mix. The taste at this point starts to come together.  But, we are far from being finished here.  This is actually the point where you may realize that the onions are a bit too strong or that the pickles are a bit salty.  Pay attention to these little taste factors. Repeat and add additional curry powder as necessary. The consistency should be like chunky porridge.  Aim for what tickles your texture and taste buds.

About


Here is a favorite recipe of mine for remoulade.
Until this easy recipe landed in our laps, we had always bought ready-made tubes of the stuff to put on our sandwiches and there was not a danish market in sight for about 100 miles. Oddly, our Danish mother had never made the stuff and thus, did not have a recipe to make one. However, by odd coincidence a Danish Deli/Bakery had recently opened in our town (unfortunately, it did not last long).  But, I did happen to ask it's owner if he knew how to make 'remoulade'.  Much to my delight and surprise, he did.  It is his recipe that I share with you today with minor modifications by me from years of fine tuning it to the homemade version I grew up with in Denmark.
If you are familiar with the American version called 'tartar sauce', you may very well trade it in for this one. It's special texture and taste compliments many different types of 'smørrebrød', especially seafood and those crab cakes that we all love.  I am sure that once you have made this you will find it a typical part of your condiment/pålæg repertoire.