Serve carpaccio as an antipasto

Carpaccio and bresaola are often offered as an antipasto with olives, various cured meats, cheeses and other pickled vegetables. The difference between the two meat cuts is that the carpaccio is served raw or lightly seared and the bresaola is air dried and aged up to three to four months, according to the size of the meat.

The best cut for carpaccio is beef tenderloin. Bresaola is often a beef leg top round that has been trimmed, rubbed with coarse salt and spices and aged until the meat turns to a dark red color. If that process is too demanding for you, you may purchase bresaola at a specialty store.

We will be serving this dish at Café Collage for the next few weeks.

CARPACCIO

Serves four to six

2 pounds beef tenderloin, trimmed

1⁄4 cup olive oil

For dressing:

1⁄2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard

1 tablespoon capers, washed and drained

1 tablespoon Meyer lemon juice

Sea salt and black ground pepper, to taste

For serving:

1⁄2 pound baby arugula or baby spinach

1 cup shaved aged Parmesan cheese

Preparation

Rub the beef with sea salt and ground pepper.

In a frying pan, heat the olive oil over high heat and sear the beef on all sides, about 30 seconds per side. The idea is to get the beef to a rare temperature.

Remove the meat from the pan and let it rest for 10 minutes. Tie the beef with a kitchen string or twine to keep its round shape. Refrigerate the beef for two hours. (Carpaccio recipes often call for freezing the beef, which I do not recommend.)

Untie the beef and carefully cut it into paper thin slices using a long, sharp knife. If you aren't able to achieve thin slices with the knife, you can gently pound the slices to make them thinner.

To prepare dressing, combine all the ingredients in a blender and process mixture until smooth. Transfer to plastic squeeze bottle.

To serve, lay six slices of beef on a large round plate with some arugula in the middle. Drizzle the dressing over all and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese.

You can use this beef recipe as an alternative bresaola, which often comes in packages of 12 slices. Serve it the same way as the carpaccio plate.

Salim Ben Mami is head chef and owner of Café Collage restaurant in Oregon House, Calif. Contact him at 530-692-2555 or ccollage@succeed.net. His website is cafecollage.net.