Trimming and Pounding Beef for Carpaccio

To clean the tenderloin, pull off the long side muscle called the “chain.”

Remove the silverskin, the tough, white sheath of connective tissue that covers some cuts of meat: Working from the tail end toward the wide end (the “head” of the tenderloin), cut into the edge of the meat just below the surface of the silverskin until you have freed a 2½-centimeter-wide (1-inch-wide) piece of silverskin. Grasping the silverskin with the hand that is not holding the knife, run the knife between the silverskin and the meat to slice off a strip of silverskin. Hold the blade at a shallow angle, toward the silverskin, so as to cut as little of the meat as possible. Move to a new section of silverskin, and continue in this way to remove all of the silverskin in strips.