(bright music) - Hi, I'm Jacques Pépin, and this is "American Masters at Home."

So here I'm going to do a carpaccio with beef.

And of course there I'm buying the best possible, which is the filet of beef.

This is about five, six ounces at the most for two people.

Two and a half, three ounces per person does a nice serving.

I would put that on a piece of plastic wrap, like this.

Another piece of plastic wrap on top to pound it.

To pound it, you want to pound it pretty thin.

If you don't have this, I use the back of a little skillet, it's perfectly fine too.

I do this, sometimes I lift it up because sometimes you pound it and the piece at the top here goes underneath, so it doesn't extend anymore.

Okay, so that's pretty fine.

I want a large plate like this.

Usually I put salt and pepper, and you have to be generous with the salt and pepper, probably close to a quarter of a teaspoon per person.

So here.

That will be one portion.

A little dash, again, salt on top, pepper, and what I would do now, if I had to do a dozen of this, I would put a piece of plastic wrap on top, pound another one, on top, on top, on top.

I would pile it up like that and leave it in my refrigerator until I'm ready to serve it.

Then when I'm ready to serve it, I would put the garnish in it.

That's about the best way to do that, you do that with fish as well, doing it ahead like this.

And even if you don't use plastic wrap, you can do it with this, but at that point, like fish or meat, you have to wet it.

You wet it to pound it, otherwise it tends to crush.

The garnish, I'm going to put a little piece of garlic here, about half a clove of garlic.

Very finely chop into a puree here.

Fine puree, and I will put that with about two tablespoons of olive oil.

Yeah, one tablespoon per person.

Then I have scallion I will have here.

Of course you could put onion, you could put them, you could garnish it with pickled onion.

Okay.

That would be my garnish this.

Some capers, and maybe some olive.

And that would be the way I would finish it up and I'm ready to serve it.

This.

The capers.

I have a tablespoon, so it's half a tablespoon per person.

And the garlic with the oil here.

Okay.

Some of the olive on top.

So the olive I split in half, still have about five, six olives.

And I would put a piece of lemon, but I would put a little wedge of lemon here and I would leave it on the side just when it's ready to serve.

Because if you press this, the citric acid in the onion is going to cook the meat, it'd become more whitish, doesn't look too good.

So only when you serve it, then you press the lemon on top, or the guests can help by himself.

And this is it, a carpaccio of beef.

Happy cooking.

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Thank you and happy cooking.

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