Bresaola con Rucola e Scaglie di Grana

This is a dish that cannot be improved by adding to it. Three ingredients of quality, a simple dressing, and the restraint to stop there. The bresaola must be genuine, from Valtellina, where the dry mountain air has cured beef this way for centuries. The arugula must be peppery and fresh, preferably the small-leafed wild variety that bites back. The cheese must be aged and firm enough to shave into translucent curls.

Americans often want to complicate things. They want to add balsamic reduction, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, pine nuts. They miss the point entirely. What you keep out is as significant as what you put in. The bresaola is lean and delicate, almost sweet in its minerality. The arugula provides the heat. The cheese contributes salt and umami. The olive oil binds them. The lemon brightens. That is all you need.

This takes ten minutes to assemble if you work slowly, five if you do not. The difficulty is not in the technique. The difficulty is in finding ingredients worthy of such simplicity.