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I try to avoid it but it’s really good specially with a glass of Arak!

Growing up, I never knew I was eating raw meat. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t think “raw” was something worth noting. I simply knew that kibbeh nayeh was incredibly good.

And so I was stunned by a recent spate of salmonella cases here in Michigan – home to America’s largest Middle Eastern population — linked to kibbeh nayeh served in a restaurant. That’s inexcusable to anyone who knows the rules about making raw kibbeh, a quintessential Lebanese dish.

“Kibbeh is the definitive Lebanese festive food,” says Kamal Mouzawak, founder of Souk el Tayeb, Beirut’s first organic farmers market, and owner of that city’s Tawlet restaurant, which showcases the talents of cooks from villages around Lebanon.

Kibbeh nayeh is made of minced raw lamb or beef, combined with bulgur, pureed onion and a mix of spices that partly depends on the cook. (My family’s spice mix: cinnamon, salt, pepper). All of the ingredients are kneaded together with a sprinkling of ice water, and then eaten — with olive oil, a scattering of chopped sweet onion, bundled in flatbread — immediately. Raw. [Link]