Carpaccio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the food. For the 15th-century painter, see Vittore Carpaccio.
Carpaccio refers to a dish made of thinly sliced raw beef or tuna, usually served as an appetizer. Its etymology comes from the painter, who favored red colors reminiscent of raw beef. The dish is said to be an invention of Harry's Bar in Venice, created when a famous actress of the day (supposedly 1950) advised Giuseppe Cipriani that her doctor had recommended she only eat raw meat. Typically the thin slices are served with a dressing of olive oil and lemon juice plus seasoning, often with green salad leaves such as arugula or radicchio and thinly sliced Parmesan cheese.
Today the term Carpaccio is used variably and often refers to any very thinly sliced presentation of foods which can range as widely as apple, kangaroo, tomatoes, langoustine, and trout—and a great many more. Similarly the amount of cooking the "subject" receives varies from none at all to searing, to rare cooking, to fully cooked.
The classic Carpaccio is of beef—various joints may be used but typically the most tender and expensive cuts from the less used muscles are favoured. Due to the difficulty inherent in thinly slicing beef many chefs or home cooks will firm up the meat in a freezer for a short time. This coupled with a very sharp knife, or if available a meat slicer, allows the very thin slicing of the beef. Not all restaurants, however, freeze the meat before slicing.
