Salsa verde two ways

I created my own little Masterchef Australia moment last night! The show has (nearly 'had' as it's about to end) a challenge to fix a dish. The idea being that two contestants fighting to stay in the competition are presented with a recipe that is flawed. Their job is to add the ingredients that will improve it.

I made the Salsa Verde from Twelve last night, a wonderful book, but sadly the sauce was lacking. I should clarify here and say it was lacking for me. Sometimes I think we get our personal preferences confused with thinking a dish is imperfect. Just because the recipe didn't work for me, shouldn't mean it's a dodgy recipe right? Now I managed to end up with a decent version of this green sauce for our meal of boiled meat and vegetables (Corned Beef, boiled potatoes, beans and broccolini). Usually I would have done mashed potatoes, a parsley-onion white sauce, cabbage and carrots with the corned beef, but I felt like Salsa Verde. I can usually trust Tessa Kiros recipes, but obviously this time, my tastes differ. I thought I might post my own version of the sauce along with the one I tried last night.

Salsa Verde a la Tessa Kiros

300g parsley
3 garlic cloves, peeled
100g capers in vinegar, drained
310ml extra virgin olive oil
salt
black pepper
a slice of white bread, soaked in red wine vinegar and squeezed out is an optional extra

Chop the parsley and garlic in the food processor before adding the capers, pulse away. Transfer to a bowl and pour in the oil and add seasonings to taste.

Salsa Verde a la Coby

1 clove garlic
1 large or 2 small bunches flat leaf parsley
1 small bunch mint or basil or coriander leaves
1 tsp Dijon mustard (sometimes I go wholegrain)
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp drained capers in vinegar
1 tsp salt flakes
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
extra salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper


On a large chopping board pop the garlic clove and salt, chop and mush the garlic until it's paste-like. Add the capers and the herb leaves on top of the garlic and chop away until it's relatively fine.

Put this into a bowl and stir in the mustard, vinegar, oil and black pepper. Taste and add extra salt if it needs it.

Alternatively roughly chop the herbs. Put the garlic in a food processor, chop it up then add the herbs, capers, mustard, vinegar oil and seasonings and pulse it until it's as fine as you like, but not a puree which is a risk with such a machine.

Serves 4-6

To 'fix' the first recipe I added a fair whack of red wine vinegar, mint and some anchovies (which in defense of the recipe are a suggestion but not a definite). I notice many recipes for this sauce include chopped boiled egg. I'm not so keen on that, though I DO love this sauce with cold hard boiled eggs. It was lovely (in the end) with our simply cooked vegetables and corned beef, so good that the children were eating the salsa by the spoonful even without meat or veg! You never can tell what children will love, it SO pays not to presume what they will or wont like!

In order to provide the recipe proper of my sauce, I had to check back in my hand written notes. I was then taken to reading through some of the other recipes, most of which I don't make anymore. There are three little books with a total of over 200 recipes. I've been cooking for many years, but haven't been cooking WELL for all those years. I mean, I did my best, and mostly it was edible, but I wonder how we would like many of the recipes recorded in those pages.

I think I am going to revisit 'My dream Recipe Book' books. I'm unlikely to be able to make all the recipes, and there are a few which do pop already. It could be interesting, and sometimes disastrous, but I'm game! I'll try the very first one this weekend and aim for a minimum of one new-old recipe a week.