Veal Carpaccio
A delicious appetizer for any gathering. When I plan a holiday table menu, my imagination usually only stretches to salads and platters of sausage, cheese, and the like—yet I so want to surprise and delight my guests with something unusual. A friend of mine suggested making veal carpaccio at home, and I was instantly fired up by the idea. For those who don’t know yet, carpaccio is thinly sliced pieces of raw meat drizzled with a mixture of oil, vinegar, and lemon juice. In short, it’s a very refined and incredibly tasty appetizer that, however, isn’t all that hard to make at home—you just need a sharper knife. So if you’re interested in how to make veal carpaccio yourself, I’ll gladly tell you about it in great detail.
1) First we take a small piece of veal, rinse it thoroughly, and pat it dry with paper towels. Then we cut the meat lengthwise, not all the way through (it should end up something like a book), open it out, and lightly pound it.
2) Next we rinse the basil and strip the leaves from the stems; the mozzarella needs to be sliced.
3) Now we season the veal with salt and black pepper, lay basil leaves on one side of the meat, and place mozzarella slices on top of them. Carefully roll the meat into a tight roll, starting from the side where the basil and cheese are.
4) Pour a little vegetable oil into a skillet and sear the roll on all sides until it turns white—literally just a couple of minutes.
5) As soon as the outside of the meat has turned white, we wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and place it in the freezer for 4–5 hours.
6) When the freezing time is almost up, you can start on the sauce. Peel the red onion, grate half an onion on a fine grater, and drain off the juice—we only need the pulp. Add balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, finely chopped basil, and ground white pepper to the onion; mix everything and pour olive oil into the sauce, then mix again.
7) Now we need to take the frozen meat out and slice it as thinly as possible. It’s best done, of course, on a slicer (a special machine), but a very sharp knife will do just fine.
8) When the meat is sliced, take a wide flat plate and drizzle it with the prepared sauce; place neat lemon rounds in the center, and around the lemon arrange the meat slices rolled into tubes; sprinkle everything with arugula.
9) Since the appetizer is served frozen, it should be set on a bowl or tray with ice; otherwise the meat will thaw and lose its shape.
That’s basically it. The preparation will take a bit of effort, but it’s worth it. Serve the appetizer at the table.
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