Tuesday, September 15, 2009

King's Inn Tartar Sauce




I'm not a big fan of tartar sauce. When it comes to seafood, especially fried shrimp, I just prefer a quick squeeze of lemon or lime. A few days ago, my dad sent me this recipe and I started thinking about tartar sauce, which is really just a mixture of mayonnaise with herbs and spices, vegetables, and what-have-you.

This recipe is supposedly from from King's Inn, a restaurant that opened in 1945 on Baffin Bay south of Kingville. It is seriously out of the way, and it's a bit of a South Texas icon now.

Online sources suggest that, "King’s Inn invented [a] really good tartar sauce and Mr. Ware is the only one who knows the recipe." I'm not sure who Mr. Ware is - I guess the owner, and if this is really his recipe, well then the secret is out!

But the recipe is actually pretty vague, which can be a good thing - there is plenty of room for innovation. For example: what kind of salad dressing; what kind of crackers? For a really quality hand-made tartar sauce I'd probably make my own mayo for this too:

King's Inn Tartar Sauce

1-1/2 cups salad dressing
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Minced jalepeƱo, minced to taste.
4 boiled eggs, shredded
Some pimentos
1/4 of 1 stack of crackers, crushed
2 ounces bell pepper, shredded
2 stalks celery, shredded
2 ounces garlic, minced
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Mix all ingredients and chill. Great with fried fish or shrimp. A South Texas favorite.