Wine Food Pairing Goes Raw - A Tasty Carpaccio!

Wine food pairing goes raw for a tasty appetizer ... what better way to serve some very special beef tenderloin than preparing carpaccio?

BigAl picked up a PSMO at the Restaurant Depot. This is a bulk package of beef tenderloin. He proceeded to remove the silver skin and to cut it up into manageable pieces .... along with several wonderful fillets, he used some of the small chunks for the carpaccio.

To whip this up, he first put the meat in the freezer to "almost" freeze which makes it easier to slice this delicious meat very thin. Then placing it between 2 cling wrap sheets he proceeded to "whack" the meat into very thin pieces. You can use a mallet, but BigAl just used a fry pan and it worked great! Now remove the top layer of cling and flip your serving plate over the meat, centering it and then turn the whole thing over while removing the second piece of cling. Voila ... your thinly sliced meat should be ready for dressing!

I guess you can dress this in many ways, but we chose a rather traditional method .... S & P, EVOO, Basalmic vinegar, capers and shaving's of parmesan cheese ... served with warm crusty bread it was AWESOME!

Carpaccio was invented by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1950 at Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy. It was named for the Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio who was noted for his use of red in his paintings. This raw meat dish is a wonderful treat, indeed.

We paired this with a Louis Jadot Beaujolais .... tasting of juicy strawberries and clean, "dusty" earthy notes, it was crisp and mouth-watering, served in Roemer wine glasses from Austria. These short "toasting" glasses have a history all their own dating back to the Roman times.

All in all a perfect appetizer for a lazy Saturday afternoon. Wine food pairing ... it is all about the food and wine. CHEERS!