“Hands down, my favorite dish growing up was my mom’s chikufta,” says our coauthor Ara Zada. “Whenever I saw her preparing it, I would bounce around the kitchen." So take his word for it: Chikufta--a Middle Eastern beef tartare mixed with bulgar and seasonings--is good stuff.

The key to successful chikufta is to use the right kind of meat, which needs to be very fresh, extremely lean, and ground almost as fine as a paste. Look for ground meat prepared for chikufta at Middle Eastern butchers. (Watch our video for what to shop for!)

Since it's raw, eat chikufta the day it’s made. Leftovers can be fried up into patties and served cooked the next day.