Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cool–so glad you’re here!
Today, I’m continuing my series on the mother sauces of California Cuisine. This week, I’m featuring vinaigrettes, which are an incredibly versatile dressing and sauce for not only salads, but also meats, fish, chicken and even sandwiches!
Chimichurri sauce is at its heart, is a vinaigrette. The basic components of a vinaigrette are oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Chimichurri is a mixture of those ingredients, plus a healthy addition of fresh herbs. The recipe I’m featuring today embraces California’s bounty by including a substantial amount of fresh flat-leafed parsley and sweet basil.
My recipe also includes oregano. The oregano could easily be fresh, but I find that the dried oregano provides a punchier flavor that works nicely against a little bit of heat from the red pepper flakes. This sauce is not at all spicy and needs the 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes to act as a counterpoint against the red wine vinegar. For a spicier version, add more red pepper flakes or other spicy component of your choice.
I love serving chimichurri sauce with grilled meats, and especially with flank steak or flat iron steak. I find that the herby-spicy-tangy flavors of the sauce cut the richness of the steak beautifully.
But chimichurri is equally at home playing with steak as it is with grilled lamb, grilled chicken and grilled pork. It also pairs well with grilled vegetables, and here’s a bonus: not only would it work as a salad dressing, but it’s makes a terrific sandwich sauce! It pairs beautifully with deli meats and cheeses on a hoagie sandwich!
I love to use flat-leafed parsley and sweet basil because it provides a good, traditional flavor for a variety of foods; but other herbs would also work here, such as cilantro and mint depending on the flavor profile you’re going for. I could see a nice mint component working well with lamb, for instance, but perhaps not working so well on a sandwich. As with so many recipes, experimentation is the name of the game–just have fun with this terrific little condiment!
Join me later in the week for more fun with vinaigrettes–
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
