Tomato Carpaccio with Peter Luger Steak Sauce
Legendary Peter Luger Steak House is now open at Caesars Palace Las Vegas marking their first U.S. location outside of New York. Operating for over 135 years, it is often regarded as the pioneer of the American steakhouse experience.
The menu at Peter Luger Steak House is famously simple and focused, highlighting its signature dry-aged steaks. The menu also features classic steakhouse sides, such as creamed spinach, German fried potatoes, thick-cut bacon, as well as sliced tomatoes and onions.
The tomato and onion side dish at Peter Luger Steak House is a simple yet iconic offering. It features thick slices of ripe tomatoes and large, sweet onions, arranged on a plate and served with their signature steak sauce.
The combination of the fresh, juicy tomatoes and mild onions provides a refreshing contrast to the rich and hearty steaks. It’s one of the restaurant’s most well-known accompaniments, celebrated for its straightforward but bold flavors.
Here, my Tomato Carpaccio was inspired by that side dish. Red ripe heirloom tomatoes and sweet Vidalia onion are lightly covered with the steak sauce where capers, olives, and anchovies add extra flavor, texture, and interest.
According to Linda Eckhardt’s Guide to America’s Best Foods: “This is the best. Their own steak sauce is not only great on steak, but also served on slabs of red ripe tomatoes. You can’t do without this. They only began selling their sauce after customers begged. We love this sauce on hamburgers. We love it on chicken. The taste is somewhere between cocktail sauce (it’s spicy with horseradish) and traditional steak sauce (being a rich brown color).”
Tomato Carpaccio Recipe
Ingredients
- good quality olive oil
- red wine vinegar
- small garlic clove, grated
- red ripe heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced
- sweet onion, thinly sliced, separated into rings
- capers
- dry-cured black olives
- peter luger steak house old fashioned sauce
- flaky sea salt and fresh ground pepper
- red chili flakes
- premium anchovies
- parsley leaves
Method
Mix equal parts olive oil and vinegar in a ramekin. Stir in garlic and set aside.
Arrange tomatoes on a platter in an overlapping fashion. Arrange onions over the tomatoes. Drizzle olive oil mixture on top.
Then add the capers and olives. Lightly pour Peter Luger Steak House Old Fashioned Sauce over the whole tomato mixture. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and chili flakes.
Roll drained anchovies into rosettes. Arrange anchovies on top. Garnish with parsley leaves.
Recipe inspired by Peter Luger Steak House and Food & Wine magazine August 2024 issue.
More Carpaccio
The dish “carpaccio” is named for Vittore Carpaccio, the Venetian Renaissance painter active during the late 15th and early 16th centuries known for his use of brilliant reds and whites.
Giuseppe Cipriani, owner of Harry’s Bar, invented the thinly sliced raw beef dish drizzled with a light creamy sauce in 1950, the year of the great Carpaccio exhibition in Venice. He believed the raw beef dish resembled Carpaccio’s paintings.
V. Carpaccio, The Marriage of the Virgin, 1504-08, Oil on Canvas
Although the dish was originally inspired by Carpaccio’s distinctive color palette, its focus has shifted over time. Today, it’s more about the delicate, thinly sliced presentation and the use of raw ingredients, rather than adhering to any specific color scheme.
Here are some examples:
Tofu Carpaccio, Beet Syrup, Asian Slaw