Tartaarsaus

At the fish stall, nobody speaks grandly about sauce. The fryer hisses, the paper cones fill with kibbeling, the counter smells of cod, hot oil, salt, and North Sea weather dragged in on coats. Then comes the little white tub. Tartaarsaus. The quiet companion. Without it, fried fish is good; with it, the whole thing suddenly knows where it is going.

The name already tells you this sauce has travelled. Tartaarsaus comes to Dutch through French sauce tartare, one of those nineteenth-century kitchen names that points eastward with more imagination than certainty. The Tatars themselves did not send us a mayonnaise bowl by courier, for obvious reasons. What mattered in Dutch hands was the useful idea: a cold, sharp sauce, thick enough to cling to fried fish, cut with pickle, caper, onion, and herbs so the fat has something bright to answer to.

But let me tell you a secret. The sauce is not there to decorate the fish. It is there to argue with it. Mayonnaise gives richness, augurk, Dutch gherkin, gives sweet-sour crunch, capers give a little briny snap, and onion gives the bite that keeps the whole bowl awake. Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple: chop small, stir gently, let it rest. Ten minutes in the refrigerator does more good than ten clever additions.