Kitfo

I eat raw meat.

Yup. Meat that has never seen heat. In fact there was a period in my life (the raw paleo phase) when I didn't eat anything BUT raw meat.
So I told this to a friend of mine a while back (months ago) and after his initial suprise he asked me what I would make for someone who'd never eaten raw meat before, a sort of 'introduction dish' to the joys of bloody muscle. I said I'd make kitfo - an ethiopian dish consisting of minced raw beef eaten with mitmita (a spice blend) and niter kibbeh (a spiced butter). So he said 'we must do kitfo soon!' and after a few months we finally set a date!

Now due to my lack of ability to follow recipes exactly, I took inspiration from a few recipes on the internet, but my recipe is most like this one.

So what did my friend think of it, you ask? Well he tried it. He didn't finish it. But he didn't gag or anything haha. I think a lot of us are socially conditioned to think of raw meat as gross (and being told that it's full of bacteria that will harm us doesn't help things either...) and it can take a while to overcome that conditioning. I didn't enjoy it all the first time I ate raw meat. But with time, my taste buds changed, and I look forward to eating raw meat dishes now!

INGREDIENTS (for 2 people)
about 400g minced beef (I froze some grassfed beef top round for 2 weeks to kill any possible parasites, and minced it myself)
 100g butter
4-5 shallots or 1/2 an onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic
A chunk of ginger, grated
1 cinnamon stick, crushed
A few cardamom pods, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds, crushed
a small chunk of nutmeg, grated
Berbere spice mix
Salt to taste



METHOD
1. To make the spiced butter, melt the butter in a pan. Skim off any foam, and pour of the clarified butter. See here for detailed instructions on making clarified butter
2.  Put shallot, garlic, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin and nutmeg in the butter, and leave to infuse (I left it in the hot butter for about an hour)
3. Meanwhile mix the ground beef with the berbere (make sure beef is room temperature or warm)
4. When ready to serve, scoop some beef into a bowl and pour some butter over. Enjoy!

I'm submitting this post to Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday. Check it out for more real food posts.