Beef carpaccio - step by step recipe

From the history of the carpaccio recipe

There are many variations of this snack in modern cooking. The appearance of this dish dates back to 1950. In Venice, an upset woman came in, whose doctor had just forbidden her to eat cooked meat.

The cook Giuseppe Cipriane, who was working in the establishment at that time, asked the visitor about the reason for the bad mood. Wanting to please the guest, the cook took out a piece of fresh, slightly frozen beef from the refrigerator. I cut it thinly and poured it with a prepared sauce of lemon juice, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce and a dash of spices.

The lady liked the snack and after that it began to gain popularity. The cook was a great supporter of the work of the Italian artist Kittore Carpaccio and decided to name the dish in his honor. Moreover, the color scheme of the new second was reminiscent of the tonality of the paintings of this master.

Time has made adjustments to this snack, adding early types of meat and fish and also vegetables or fruits as cutting items. Today, the recipe for the second one implies not so much the composition of the dish, but rather the method of cutting its ingredients, which are served with any sauces.

For an impressive presentation, the appetizer is placed on a plate, on a bed of fresh herbs, for example, arugula, watercress, fresh lettuce leaves or a mix of them.

It is believed that carpaccio is not only a tasty recipe, but also a healthy snack. The absence of heat treatment of ingredients allows for maximum preservation of vitamins and microelements. The dish is a prevention of certain diseases, for example, obesity, gastrointestinal tract disorders and other problems.

The quality of the snack products used must be of the highest quality. After all, there is no heat treatment of the main ingredient. The carpaccio recipe implies the possibility of preparing it at home.

A delicious story, or how carpaccio came to be

Carpaccio has only been around for 70 years and, compared to other traditional recipes in Italy, it is a very young dish. It was first prepared in Venice in 1950, and was created by Giuseppe Cipriani, chef and owner of the Harry's Bar cafe.

According to legend, carpaccio was created specifically for Countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo, who was a regular customer of Harry's Bar. One day she came to the establishment in a bad mood and told Giuseppe that the doctor had forbidden her to eat meat that had undergone any kind of heat treatment. She couldn’t imagine her life without her favorite meat snacks, and the hospitable owner came up with a brilliant solution - serving the meat raw.

He found a fresh piece of marbled beef in the refrigerator and sliced it very thin. The very first sauce for this dish consisted of homemade mayonnaise, milk, lemon juice, ground pepper and piquant sweet and sour Worcestershire sauce. The Countess liked this appetizer so much that rumors about the dish quickly spread first throughout Venice, and then throughout Italy and throughout the world.

Giuseppe Cipriani named his dish “carpaccio” in honor of the Italian artist Vittore Carpaccio, whose grand exhibition was just taking place in Venice in 1950. Red and white shades predominate in his paintings, and the chef thought this combination was very similar to sliced beef with milk and mayonnaise sauce.

Homemade pork carpaccio

Snack recipe fulfills the following points:

The main condition for preparing a tasty and safe dish is the choice of quality meat. It is preferable to take a piece of steamed lean pork, which should be without veins, bones and films. The pork should be wrapped in plastic and slightly frozen. The plate on which the pork is placed should also be cooled to preserve the freshness of the cut for a long time.
While the meat is freezing, you need to prepare the sauce. Modern cooking, unlike the original version of the dish, is more minimalistic. Experts offer a sauce recipe that contains:
- olive oil;
balsamic vinegar and lemon juice.

All liquid ingredients should be mixed in equal proportions or according to your taste and add a little ground pepper.

Wash and dry the greens with a paper towel. Place it on a plate. Remove the pork from the freezer, cut thin slices of meat with a sharp knife and beat each one lightly.
Place on a plate around the greens or directly on it, making a kind of pillow out of the greens for the chopped pieces. It is recommended to do this procedure with each piece of meat in exactly this order - cut, beat, put on a plate.
Pour the sauce over the pork and serve immediately. This dish cannot be prepared in advance to prevent the development of bacteria.

You can diversify the snack recipe by adding leaves of fresh aromatic herbs, such as basil, rosemary, mint, to olive oil and let it brew. This will add a new note of freshness to the taste of the dish.

To complement the greens, you can add a few cherry tomatoes or capers. They go very well with the taste of meat. In Italy, pieces of Parmesan or other hard cheese are added to carpaccio.

Salmon carpaccio

Gourmets will like this offer. At first glance, it takes very little time to cook, but the result exceeds any expectations. In addition, carpaccio turns out to be very refined and capable of winning the heart of a connoisseur. A couple of right tips and a masterpiece of world-class culinary art will already please the eye on the festive table.

Ingredients:

Salted salmon - 200 grams.
Parmesan – 500 grams.
Lemon.
Arugula - a bunch.
Cherry tomatoes – 6 pieces.
Balsamic vinegar.
Olive oil.
Ground pepper.

Serves appetizers for 6 persons.

Cooking process:

1.Collect the required products.

2. Divide Parmesan into thin slices.

3. Rinse the arugula, dry it, and separate the solid parts.

4.Divide the salmon into very thin pieces. They should be literally transparent.

5. Mix olive oil, a tablespoon of lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and salt.

6. Distribute the salmon slices on one plane.

Homemade beef carpaccio

A classic option is a beef appetizer. In summer it can be served as a main dish with plenty of salad. In winter, it is a hearty snack or a complete main course. For cooking, you need to choose only the freshest tenderloin or fillet of beef. You will need:

350–400 g beef;
a bunch of fresh arugula;
100 g hard parmesan cheese;
50–70 ml olive oil;
ground black pepper;
juice of one lemon, salt.

Step-by-step cooking instructions:

Mix olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper in one container. Place the greens on a plate as a pillow under the meat.
Cut the slightly frozen beef into thin slices, beat it a little and place it on the greens. Pour the sauce over the pieces and place in a cool place for 10 minutes to marinate the meat.

Beef carpaccio recipe at home is not at all difficult to prepare. If the quality of the meat is in doubt, you can use dried or smoked meat. It has become popular recently in Italian cuisine.

Recipe options for snacks made from pork or beef are quite expensive in terms of the cost of products, so chicken fillet, as a budget option, is also often taken as the main ingredient.

What is carpaccio and what is it eaten with?

What is carpaccio? Who invented it? What varieties are there? When it comes to carpaccio, most people frown and try to correlate the word with at least some picture from their own memory. In order not to get into trouble when ordering fish carpaccio , so as not to stammer, maintaining a conversation with friends about the most unusual carpaccio that you have tried, in order to know and understand what we are talking about, I offer a short excursion into history and several types of non-standard snacks.

Let's start with the fact that carpaccio comes from Italy. This dish was born in magical Venice - and the year of its birth is even completely known. Everything was like that. The story began with Giuseppe Cipriani (Cipriani) - a young guy with an ardent heart and ardent faith in the future worked as a bartender at the Europe Hotel. It worked like everyone else, nothing special, nothing outstanding, nothing memorable. And even the fateful meeting was not special or outstanding - Harry Pickering, a young American, a playmaker, came to Venice quite by accident, representing a very noble and wealthy house, which, having decided that a slacker and an alcoholic was a disgrace to their family, suddenly decided to stop funding the young man’s entertainment . Harry was left penniless - and, complaining about his lot, drinking one cocktail after another in the restaurant of the Hotel Europe, he poured out his soul to Giuseppe Cipriani, who happened to be on hand. The bartender sincerely felt sorry for the guy - and... and gave him all the savings he had: 10,000 liras (about $5,000), collected to open his own bar.

Harry took the money and left for another life. Giuseppe remained in the same place, mixing drinks and serving coffee to visitors. But the story didn’t end there—on the contrary, it had just begun! After 2 years, American businessman Harry Pickering comes to Venice again, and this time not empty-handed: being an honest man, he returned to repay his debt. And with interest - the happy Giuseppe Cipriani received 50,000 lire, immediately quit and opened his own establishment, which the whole world knows as the Harry Bar, the birthplace of the legendary Bellini cocktail and... and, of course, carpaccio appetizers!

So here's carpaccio. This happened in 1950 - an exhibition of paintings by Vittore Carpaccio, an Italian painter of the Renaissance period, came to Venice. Giuseppe spent all his free time in the gallery - immersing himself in the world of colors, the artist’s non-standard vision of the world, in strokes, brushstrokes, colors. He was completely fascinated, absorbed, in love, Vittore Carpaccio became his idol. However, it was impossible to shirk work - the restaurant, his beloved brainchild, demanded attention, and its owner tried to combine one passion with another... After a while, the exhibition was taken further, to other cities and countries, and Giuseppe was left with memories and endless inspiration. Among the regular customers of Harry's Bar was one lady, Countess Amalia Mocenigo, and around the same time she came to her favorite establishment with her sadness: doctors forbade her to eat meat after cooking. In other words, her favorite steaks and steaks became “persona non grata” in the diet of a passionate fan of meat dishes. Giuseppe Cipriani immediately decided to dispel the sadness of his beloved client - and, running into the kitchen, after a while he brought a new dish, which he had just invented.

The Countess was happy, and so was the owner of Harry's Bar. When it came to what to call the invented appetizer, Giuseppe had no doubt - the dish was called carpaccio, and here's why.

The classic version of the famous dish is prepared as follows: the freshest beef tenderloin is peeled, wrapped in cling film and placed in the freezer for 2 hours. Thanks to such surface freezing, meat can be cut across the grain into the thinnest pieces possible - ideally, of course, with a slicer, but if you don’t have one, it doesn’t matter, you can do it that way. The finished “chips” are placed on a dish and seasoned with a mixture of Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Serve the appetizer with arugula, tomatoes, cheese, capers and serve immediately.

The resulting snack was so beautiful, bright and attractive that it reminded it of the author of the painting, Vittorio Carpaccio. Giuseppe decided that it was the artist’s paintings that inspired him to create a new dish, and therefore named the raw meat appetizer after the great painter.

This story happened in 1950. Carpaccio quickly became popular, its recipe spread around the world like spray from a fountain, and, quite logically, began to acquire new and new features, features, and varieties. Today, by the word “carpaccio” we mean the way of serving food - by slicing it as thinly as possible, seasoned with sauce. It is clear that the original, classic dish has not gone away either, but now, if you see the name “carpaccio” on the menu without any additional explanation, do not be lazy to ask the waiter what is hidden behind the sonorous word.

Carpaccio began to be prepared from literally everything! You can experiment with anything, here are some non-standard options for this snack :

1. Any meat, not just beef - pork, venison, turkey, horse meat.

2. Mushrooms.

3. Various vegetables and root vegetables - celery, carrots, cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, zucchini.

4. Fruits and berries.

5. Fish and seafood.

The basic rule is no heat treatment, the thinnest possible cutting possible for a particular product, and a bright sauce.

Get creative and compose, you may well come up with a completely new recipe for delicious carpaccio that no one has tried before!

As a bonus, I offer you a simple recipe for strawberry carpaccio. A few movements - and on your table you have a stunningly bright, fresh, juicy and tasty dish, ideal for a glass of white wine and soulful company. Ingredients: strawberries; Parmesan; arugula; balsamic vinegar. Slice the dense, hard strawberries as thinly as possible and place them on a plate. Sprinkle parmesan shavings on top of the strawberries. A few arugula leaves. Balsamic vinegar. Serve immediately. Bon appetit!