Recipe: Carpaccio with Sprout Salad

Thought I'd share a recipe from Alton Brown's Good Eats for Beef Capaccio. I've made it a few times now and it doesn't disappoint (even though the butcher's mangling of our tenderloin did). The original recipe can be found here.

One thing this recipe doesn't mention is quickly pan searing the roast before placing it in the freezer. Yeah I know, Carpaccio's supposed to be raw, but with the paranoia of today's consumer, it's better safe than sorry. Quickly pan searing all sides helps to kill off any bacteria that may be on the outside of the meat (surface area is typically where all the buggers are). I also find that after pounding it out, the meat has a more dynamic aesthetic with small ring of cooked meat around the edge (it's like the pink ring found on smoked meats). You can omit the searing if you'd like, if not, get out a heavy (preferably cast iron) pan, and heat up a bit of extra virgin olive oil (medium-high). Salt and pepper the meat on all sides (I'm pretty liberal with the salt on this particular dish). Quickly sear all sides (a minute or less on each side, even the ends). It shouldn't take much time to cool, and you proceed with the plastic wrap as per the original recipe.

Because we've had an over abundance of sprouts this week, I opted for a alfalfa salad instead of arugala, and because we had some left over aged provolone that was used instead of Parmesan. In addition to the sprouts, I added some carrots and green beans. I tried something different with the green beans, I used the vegetable peeler to create thin slices (ribbons?). It turned out surprisingly well.

My wife topped hers with a drizzle of olive oil, and I used a drizzle of Balsamic vinegar. We don't make 4 servings the way the recipe suggests, in fact, I just wing it when it comes to the amount of meat. It was about 3-4 inches of the tenderloin this last time. Keep in mind the sliced pre-pounded beef rounds were very small considering the crap cleaning job the "butcher" did. Still bitter, I suppose. From now on we're cleaning the meat at the house, at least if we mess it up we can learn from the experience.