One of my favorite blogs is The Bitten Word, namely because they are just as obsessed with food magazines as I am.  They are in the middle of their 2013 Cover-to-Cover Challenge, and I was happy to sign up.

The night before our “assignments” came out, I glanced through the Bon Appetit issue they were using, and noticed the magazine had named its Dish of the Year.  I flipped to the page, double-checked the page number, turned to the next page, flipped back again, and decided that yes, Bon Appetit had actually named Lamb Tartare its Dish of the Year.  I shook my head and hoped that wasn’t the dish I was assigned.

So I had to laugh when it was.  A quick trip to Central Market provided everything I needed, including a pricey rack of lamb and preserved lemons, two ingredients I had never before considered buying.

The recipe was very easy: Chop and mix. The dog supervised.

 

One egg yolk later, we had this:

Two of us tried it while the other two looked on nervously.  How did it taste?  Pretty darn good.  The flavor of the lamb was clean and the other ingredients did not overwhelm it.  It tasted remarkably fresh.  Even the mint, which I am not normally a fan of, was a great fit.  The best comment came from Matt, who said, “None of the flavors in there repulse me.”  On a normal night, I would not appreciate that, but I was happy enough that he tried it!

However, it also tasted quite good the next day when I cooked it up for brunch.  I will leave the tartare making to the experts.