Leland Pang’s recipe request was more than 36 years in the making.

Pang wrote to ask for the formula for tartar sauce as made at the old Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant. He’d tasted it with a calamari dish at a dinner celebrating his godson’s christening in 1982.

“I make my own tartar sauce at home,” Pang said. “It’s very simple, just mayo and pickled hot-dog relish.”

The restaurant’s tartar sauce, though, was a cut above. Still, he didn’t get around to asking for the recipe until a few weeks ago.

“It took how many years,” he said. “You do the math.”

Pang did remember that the recipe ran in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin “circa 1981,” but he’d failed to cut it out. Besides, it was the next year that he actually tasted it.

The guy’s got some memory.

With that many clues, I was able to find the recipe in a few minutes. It was printed on Aug. 5, 1981, in a Star-Bulletin feature called “Cooking With the Pros,” a precursor of this very column.

It used to be that whenever I received a request for a recipe that old, I could only send people to the microfilm files at the Hawaii State Library. We had no way to easily conduct a search.

Now we have a magical online tool called newspapers.com that allows us to search back to the beginning of both the Star-Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser for treasures such as a lost tartar sauce.

Subscribers to this paper have access to the website going back two years. Full access costs $7.95 per month.

Or, if you’re specifically looking for a recipe you’re pretty sure ran in the paper long ago, send me enough details and I may be able to find it.

NOW, as for Pang’s tartar sauce recipe …

In general, tartar sauce is made with mayonnaise, lemon juice and chopped dill pickles. Some recipes include herbs (parsley is common), mustard or Worcestershire sauce.

It’s generally served with seafood, especially fried items.

This recipe is a little different in its use of capers, which you’ll find in only a few recipes. They add another element of tartness.

Precision cooks will want to weigh out the ingredients to get closest to the original version. Tablespoon equivalents will vary some depending on how small you chop the ingredients.

FISHERMAN’S WHARF TARTAR SAUCE

• 2 cups mayonnaise
• 1/2 ounce (1-1/2 tablespoons) finely chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 ounce (1 tablespoon) finely chopped capers
• 1 ounce (3 tablespoons) finely chopped dill pickles
• 1-1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
• Pinch dried dill
• Salt and white pepper, to taste
• Accent Flavor Enhancer, to taste (optional)

Combine all ingredients. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Chill well. Makes about a pint.

Approximate nutritional information, per 2 tablespoons (not including salt to taste or Accent): 150 calories, 16 g total fat, 2.5 g saturated fat, 10 mg cholesterol, 200 mg sodium, no carbohydrate, fiber, sugar or protein.

Write By Request, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu 96813; or email requests to bshimabukuro@staradvertiser.com.