Something simple: Italian style green sauce

Memory is a funny thing. There are times when memories from, who knows when, just kind of pop into my head. I can't really fathom the reason for them showing up when they do, but there they are. I suspect this has happened to you too. On some of those "pop ups," I can recall when the thing I'm remembering happened, or events associated with it, or something. But then there are times when it's just an "unaccompanied" memory.
Those unaccompanied memories happen to me in the kitchen a lot. I'll start with a particular purpose in mind, and somewhere between sofa and stove, there's a change, a veering toward a different destination, with me not knowing why. Sometimes, in fact, most times, I never figure out why. Guy will come by, notice me working and ask "whatcha making?" and I will have absolutely no idea. It's just automatic pilot. Maybe it's something I saw Nana make and I'm recalling it, maybe ideas have fermented to the point where I have a new dish in mind, who knows? Remember one of my mantras? "It's not important to keep up, what's important is to keep open." So, when you go into the kitchen, keep your mind open. Don't feel totally wedded to your plan, and wait for those ideas to pop in.

On Monday, I was preparing a Florentine dish, modified American style, called "tagliata." "Tagliata" is as close as Italians come to a traditional roast. They prepare a HUGE steak - when I saw huge, I mean in excess of two pounds , by grilling it with just salt and pepper, and then slicing it ("tagliata"), and serving a few pieces of it, with vegetables. Sometimes, this is served with a green sauce. I almost never make it, and cannot recall the last time I did in fact make it. But on Monday, it popped into my head, as a general concept, and it came out of the kitchen with the steak.

I daresay, it was the highlight of the meal. Leftovers went into salad dressing, and then I made a variation of it again last night, as a pure salad dressing, again a hit.

Italians also make a green sauce with the classic "bollito misto." That green sauce is milder than the one I'm describing here, but as I will try to explain, this is so open to interpretation that you can make it anyway you want. The single key ingredient is parsley. Lots and lots of parsley.

You start with about two cups of fresh parsley, leaves and stems. Just chop it up roughly and throw it into a food processor or a blender. I prefer the processor for this, but they'll both work. Add some hot peppers . Here's where you get the first shot at variation. Use what you like. Unless you're serving something Calabrian, or Sicilian, I would tend toward a lesser amount of heat in the dish, but if you like things hot and spicy, who am I to tell you not to use them?

Don't answer that.

Anyway, you have your hot peppers and your parsley in the blender. Add a good slug of vinegar. I use champagne vinegar, but you can use any vinegar you like. Guestimate how much vinegar you added, and add half again as much olive oil. Also add a good heaping teaspoon of salt. Get the machine going and puree the stuff. Turn it off and taste it. Need more vinegar? Add it. More salt? Go for it. Not spicy enough? Add more peppers. Too spicy? Add more parsley. Finally, if it looks too thick, then add water and blend it again. You can do that here, because the vinegar and oil work, chemically, to allow you to incorporate water into the sauce without causing a separation. This is a "liason" in cooking , although if you can manage to get a liason of another type going in the kitchen, who am I to prevent you?

Don't answer that one either.


This sauce is great as it is, and like I say, on a rare, grilled steak, it is wonderful. You can also thin it with more oil and vinegar to make a salad dressing or, as I did last night, with a wave of "inspiration," blend some yogurt into some of it, to make a lighter salad dressing. Blended with the yogurt, it went onto a salad of lettuces, golden beets and macrona almonds. The yogurt was the "right" note for the dressing and we enjoyed it thoroughly. And there is plenty of green sauce to put on some roast chicken.

These little, easy sauces, will make your cooking so much better you may very well be amazed. Collect these kinds of recipes, if you collect no others, and you'll be able to create a new dish in the time it takes to make the sauce.