How to Make Lamb Tartare Like a Chef

A good lamb tartare recipe will cost you around 15-$20 at a nice restaurant. If you love it like I do, you should know it’s easy to make at home. Read on and I’ll show you how chefs do it.

Tartare, or raw, seasoned meat is a delicious way to prepare lamb or goat, especially in the summer since it’s a light dish that doesn’t involve turning on a stove. It can be intimidating to make at home, but it shouldn’t be: it’s one of the easiest things I know how to make as there’s no cooking involved. Typically people think of beef when they think of tartare, but lamb and goat are both fantastic and well worth the small amount of effort they take to put together.

There’s a few important things to know though, and after making tartare in my restaurants for years, I have a few good tips for you.

Tartare tips

Use a lean muscle, preferably from the leg

You want a lean cut of meat here, with no visible fat. Fat is not desirable in tartare as it doesn’t have the same tender mouthfeel as lean meat. This means you’ll want to use a muscle from the leg, or a loin. I prefer to use leg muscles as they’re cheaper.

Trim the meat of all connective tissue

This is important. You’ll want a sharp paring knife to do the trimming as I outline in the video.

Freeze the meat for 30-60 minutes to make dicing it easier

While you can cut the meat fresh, or grind it, I prefer my tartare diced into tiny cubes. Freezing the meat after trimming will make it easier to dice.

How to make lamb tartare

While you can season tartare with just about anything you like, my favorite is the simple vinaigrette that I used to serve at my restaurants, that I learned from a chef I worked for. Some people like mayonnaise-based dressings, and that can work too. Feel free to be creative. One of the best tips for cutting meat into perfect small cubes for tartare is to put it in the freezer for an hour before cutting. If the meat is warm it will be much harder to cut into cubes. If dicing meat sounds difficult, you can also grind it, but make sure to trim as much fat off as you can.

This recipe is by James Beard Award-winning Chef Alan Bergo, a chef from Minnesota and author of The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora. Learn more about Chef Alan at foragerchef.com. 

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