CHIMMICHURRI SAUCE
Spread this on anything. We had it on roasted chicken breast, but you could put this on anything.
Seriously, this is a salad dressing, a dipping sauce, a condiment, any thing.
I always thought that this was exclusively Argentinian, but recently I read on Wikipedia that it’s also found in Uruguay, Nicaragua and Mexico. I loved one of the stories however and if you know me, you know I never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
One story claims that it comes from ‘Jimmy McCurry’, an Irishman who is said to have first prepared the sauce. He was marching with the troops of General Belgrano in the 19th century, sympathetic to the cause of Uruguay independence.
The sauce was popular and the recipe was passed on. However, ‘Jimmy McCurry’ was difficult for the native people to say. Some sources claim Jimmy’s sauce’s name was corrupted to ‘chimichurri’, while others say it was changed in his honor.
I love it being attributed to an Irishman. I mean, it’s green and all, right? No matter who came up with it, it’s delicious.
Ingredients
- 2 bunches of parsley cleaned, dried and trimmed
- 9 cloves of garlic
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flake
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- the zest of 3 lemons
- the juice of those lemons (about 1/2 cup
- 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
You need to start with the garlic, but you don’t put whole cloves of garlic into a food processor, you might wind up with big chunks of garlic. What I do is pull each clove off the bulb and paper and all and with the broad side of a big knife smash it. (Put the knife on top of the clove and with your other hand, make a fist and smash the knife with the side of your fist.) then just pick up the paper, it’s really that easy, the paper just separates from the garlic.
Put the smashed garlic cloves, the oregano, salt, red pepper flake, ground pepper, the lemon zest and juice into the bowl of the processor and pulse about 5 times.
Add the parsley and pulse about 20 times Then, with the motor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the mixture.
Pour the sauce into a container with an airtight lid and allow to marinate for at least an hour before using.
Notes
So good.
I started out with this much on top of the chicken but just kept adding more. I dressed the salad with olive oil, salt and pepper and had more salad after I was done because it would have been criminal to throw out what was left on my plate.
A big piece of crusty bread would have been a very welcome addition for mopping.