Wurst-Käse Tartare

Recipe of the month, October 2026

A Wurstkäsesalat in a suit. Cervelat and Emmentaler, cut into tiny cubes and served like a tartare.

• Serves 2
• 20 minutes
• No cooking

Swiss food doesn't need new recipes

Let's be honest: Swiss food often doesn't look great. A lot of brown, a lot of sausage, not much that looks fresh. Then you look at French food, and even a simple dish looks like it belongs in a restaurant. That's when it clicked for me: half of it is plating.

So I started taking pragmatic Swiss classics and giving them the fine dining treatment. Wurstkäsesalat was the perfect test. Same ingredients, cut small and pressed into a ring. Same taste, very different first impression.

2'500, 9'000 or 90'000 views?

This video now has 170'000 views. Some videos I work on for days barely get noticed, and then a sausage salad takes off. The algorithm is hard to read, so here's what happened behind the scenes.

I didn't post it once. I posted it three times, as Trial Reels. Instagram shows Trial Reels only to people who don't follow you, and they don't appear on your profile. If you've ever watched a reel, gone to the creator's profile and couldn't find it anywhere, that's why.

Each version had a different voiceover. After one day:

2'500Version 1

9'000Version 2

90'000Version 3

Same recipe, same food, different story. The 90'000 version went onto my profile, and from there it kept growing.

Which Swiss classic should get the fine dining treatment next? Reply to my newsletter or send me a DM on Instagram.

The recipe

Ingredients

• 2 small Cervelats
• 100 g Emmentaler, mild or aged
• 1 egg yolk
• 3 cornichons
• 2 tbsp capers
• 1 shallot
• 1 bunch chives
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• About 5 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp herb vinegar
• A pinch of chili flakes
• Pickled onions, bread and butter to serve

How to make it

1. Cut the Cervelat, Emmentaler, cornichons, capers and shallot into 2 to 3 mm cubes. Everything should be roughly the same size.
2. Chop the chives very finely. They are the only thing that goes smaller.
3. Mix everything with the egg yolk, Dijon, Worcestershire, herb vinegar and chili flakes.
4. Press into a ring mould for a clean round shape. Top with cornichons, pickled onions and chives, and serve with bread and butter.

Same size is everything. That's what turns a salad into a tartare.

Save the ratio. One yolk, a teaspoon of Dijon, five dashes of Worcestershire and a tablespoon of vinegar works for any tartare.