If the answer to the question of what to do when life gives you lemons is “Make lemonade,” the answer to the question of what to do when life gives you a pile of meat trimmings is “Make tartare and charcuterie.” I’ve been making these things for decades, and they continue to give me great pleasure as reminders of how a little ingenuity and touch can produce a dish that far exceeds the potential of humble ingredients.
Good meat can be delicious in any number of ways besides the conventional cooking methods we use most of the time. Raw meat, as you see in a dish like tartare and carpaccio, emphasizes delicacy and texture over the rich flavors that develop with cooking. Tartare is also a great vehicle for the other savory notes used in the seasoning—mustard, pickles, capers. The same is true no matter what protein you use, as you’ll see with the lamb and tuna tartare recipes in this chapter.
Charcuterie shows us yet another side of meat, where it’s partially cooked through a process of curing or brining. These processes happen in a cool temperature and use salt and/or sugar to preserve the meat, producing rich, tangy, savory flavors that can’t be achieved with other methods.
While tartares and charcuterie were originally thrifty ways to use trimmings and other parts that were tougher sells, today they can be delicacies in their own right. So that means, feel free to use higher-end cuts to up the quality of your dishes. For instance, we throw trimmings (from great cuts) into tartare, but we also use some high-end meat like the filet and the sirloin. And a quick note on safety: If you’re buying fresh, good-quality beef and grinding it yourself, there should be no issues with eating or preparing raw beef. Just keep it cold when making it, and if there’s a delay between preparation and eating it, keep it in the fridge.
I love tartare in any shape and form. It’s a lean, clean, and satisfying merger of the mellow taste of raw protein with a series of enlivening condiments. It’s great with wine or beer and never taxes the palate, which is why it makes such a fantastic appetizer, though it can also work as a mellow main course. At Knife, we always offer several tartares. The meat is ground to order, and it’s all mixed by hand to achieve the perfect texture.
One of the most decadent things you can do with tartare is serve it alongside something cooked, a combination I find irresistible. I first encountered it in Paris in 1995 at Alain Ducasse’s now defunct Spoon, Food & Wine. They served a hanger steak with a mound of steak tartare piled on it—it was one of the best dishes of my life. The tartare was liberally laced on top of the dish, providing an eye-opening contrast between this vinegary, marinated hanger and the lushness of the tartare.*
