Salmon tartare with a flavoured olive oil mayonnaise

Work raw fish on a clean synthetic board. Wash and dry hands on a clean paper towel, not a tea towel, or wear gloves.

Remove the skin from the salmon, then put it on a plate in the freezer to firm up while the mise en place is done; cold fish is much easier to cut.

Mise en place: measure the olive oil, tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, capers, shallots, salt, pepper and Dijon mustard, and chop everything.

Pluck the parsley leaves off the stalks, then cross-chop them slowly and then faster until very fine. No stalks go into the tartare.

Slice the chives as thinly as possible, discarding the off cuts.

Make an olive oil mayonnaise: mix the mustard with the egg yolk, salt and pepper and work it until the emulsion starts.

Incorporate the olive oil bit by bit as for any mayonnaise. It will be dark and very thick.

Work in a few teaspoons of lemon juice, about the juice of half a lemon, to whiten it and loosen it to a slightly runny sauce.

Take half the mayonnaise base off and set it aside; this quantity serves two.

Flavour the base with a good tablespoon of shallots, a good tablespoon of chives, a bit of parsley, a few drops of tabasco and a few drops of Worcestershire sauce, and mix.

Take the firmed salmon out. Cut it into slices, then into batons or matchsticks, then across into the smallest cubes possible.

Add the flavoured mayonnaise to the salmon a little at a time and mix, judging by eye; too much salmon and too little dressing is the common fault.

Cover with plastic wrap and leave 10 to 15 minutes, up to 20, in the fridge. The acid macerates the fish, slightly cooking the outside and changing its colour.

Plate through a food ring in the middle of the plate, filling it and flattening the mixture level, then lift the ring away.

Decorate with dill, pieces of cucumber, a twisted half lemon, extra capers, a little parsley and black pepper, and drizzle a little oil.

Serve with bread or toast-like biscuits on the side.