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Thursday, September 13, 2012

Leftover Parsley? Make Chimichurri.

what's a girl to do with leftover parsley?

THIS afternoon, a good friend of mine who's moving to Chicago at the end of the month joined me for lunch. After she'd gone, I'd noticed that I suddenly had an overabundance of parsley in the kitchen. What to make with it? I thought of making a (parsley) pesto... but David pointed out that I'd need pine nuts. (I was trying to rid my kitchen of ingredients, not induce more.) I searched for pesto recipes online, sans pine nuts. What I eventually landed upon was a handful of recipes for chimichurri. From the multiple windows open on my desktop, I copied this recipe from Epicurious.com.

chimichurri sauce

IT wasn't until I'd combined all the necessary ingredients... that I'd realized I'd written down the wrong recipe. The chimichurri I'd really wanted to make was this one--using three tablespoons of capers (about the amount I have leftover in my fridge from when I'd made sauce gribiche). But as Julia Child wisely put it: Cooking is one failure after another, and that's how you finally learn. I'll be sure to write down the correct recipe next time.

who's claiming the leftovers? I don't know
how long chimichurri keeps for... 

HOWEVER, no real harm was done--just that the recipe I used wasn't the recipe that I was truly excited about trying... But I will say that this recipe is extremely quick and easy to follow!

Chimichurri Sauce
Makes about 1 cup 
This garlicky sauce from Argentina is great spooned over beef or chicken
1 cup (packed) fresh Italian parsley
½ cup olive oil
⅓ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup (packed) fresh cilantro
2 garlic cloves, peeled
¾ teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon salt 
Purée all ingredients in food processor. Transfer to bowl. (Can be made two hours ahead; cover and let stand at room temperature.)

Instead of the Italian parsley combined with cilantro, I just used 1¼ cups of the curly parsley I'd bought earlier this afternoon. I also used sea salt since one recipe I came across (for pesto) recommended using "mineral rich sea salt." It's usually what I prefer.

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