I’ve always relished a bit of Salsa Verde on a nice piece of grilled fish, especially fresh tuna or a perfectly cooked chunky white fish. Salsa Verde is outrageously flavoursome and has the added bonus of being a raw sauce / dressing, which means it’s quick and easy to prepare. You can even make this in advance of the meal you’re planning to serve it with to remove a little meal assembly stress.
This can easily become vegetarian by omitting the anchovies, but you’ll probably want to add in a pinch of sea salt to pack in the salty punch the anchovies usually bring to the party.
I have recently discovered that the anchovy-free version is rather delicious with scrambled eggs. I don’t know about you but I can sometimes tire of my usual brekky repertoire so a little va va voom from this saucy accompaniment was a welcome change.
Now you can of course pop all of the ingredients in a mini processor and whizz this up in a mere moment. But there are times when I’m right up for a bit of manual labour and at those times I like to plonk the herbs, capers, garlic and anchovies on a board, grab a sharp knife and chop chop chop until I have a chunky green salsa which can easily be mixed in a bowl with the oil and lemon juice.
My final note on this is that you’d normally see an astonishing volume of oil in a salse verde recipe, anything from 100ml upwards. My recipe, on the other hand, uses as little as I can get away with. For me that’s usually a good glug, or between 1 – 2 tablespoons. I advise starting with a glug or 2 then drizzling more in a little at a time until you have the right consistency for you.
If you have any left you can store it, covered, in the fridge.
Easy Breezy Salsa Verde
Ingredients
- A small bunch of parsley, leaves picked
- A few sprigs of fresh mint (about a tablespoon)
- A couple of tablespoons of capers, drained
- 1 plump clove of garlic
- 4 anchovy fillets in oil, drained (leave these out for a veggie version)
- 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
- Juice of 1/2 a lemon
- Olive oil, depending how oily you like things use anything from 2 tablespoons to 100ml+
Method
- On a decent sized chopping board, chop the herbs, capers, garlic and anchovies until you have a coarsely textured pile
- Transfer to a bowl and stir in the lemon juice, mustard and olive oil
OR
- Blitz everything in a food processor
Marvellous Ways With Salsa Verde
- Spooned over cooked fish
- Spread generously in a tasty sandwich or wrap
- Drizzled over scrambled eggs or a nice cheesy omelette
- Swirled with a flourish through soup
- Also divine with a simple roasted chicken breast but I’d go for the anchovy free version here
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