Carpaccio
Simple way of serving best fillet of beef - no cooking involved!
Carpaccio is an Italian dish of raw, thinly sliced beef. Although the word has become greatly misused to describe anything thinly sliced (e.g. carpaccio of Thai-scented tuna), this is basically a pretension - true carpaccio is beef, nothing else.
Said to be invented in Harry's Bar in Venice, best quality beef fillet is sliced as thinly as possible, still raw, before being arranged on a plate with a simple accompaniment of olive oil, parmesan, black pepper and rocket.
Variations include marinating the beef before slicing, and maybe searing the outside of the fillet briefly to give some extra colour and flavour, again before slicing. The meat should still be almost completely uncooked though.
Only the best fillet of beef, properly hung, is appropriate for this dish, as the meat needs to be meltingly tender even without cooking.
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