Chimichurri Sauce: my favourite go-to-sauce

This is actually my favourite sauce. Whenever we have a lazy saturday evening where we want to make something incredibly tasty for dinner, after the kids are asleep, I almost always think of grilling some meat or seafood and making this sauce. Serve with some crusty bread and a glass of red wine and it will be a meal to remember. My favourite is grilled prawns and scallops with this sauce.

Chimichurri Sauce is originally from Argentina and is a popular dipping sauce for grilled meat. I've never been there but would love to one day! A gal can dream. I've found various recipes online using various proportions of parsley, cilantro and other herbs but this recipe I find the simplest and tastiest. All you really need is fresh parsley and lemon and the other ingredients are usually on hand.

Chimichurri Sauce
from Gourmet June 2008

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1 Tablespoon minced shallot
3/4 teaspoon hot chill flakes
3/4 cup flat leave parsley, chopped


Chop finely and blend OR do as I prefer and throw in the blender and puree.

This guy doesn't eat the sauce but such a cute photo I couldn't resist including it:)

Fresh Tomato Sauce

My sister Melody was visiting this past weekend and one thing she LOVES to do whenever she can get over to the mainland is to hit up Bosa which is a fabulous Italian grocery store and deli. So Bosa we did go and boy did we do some damage! We loaded up on olive oil, coffee, tea, chocolates, tuna in olive oil, goats cheese, baguette, truffle oil, marinated artichokes, sundried tomatoes and fresh ravioli stuffed with yummy squash and walnuts. All very practical things we kept telling ourselves.

That night, she offered to cook the fresh pasta we had purchased in a quick tomato sauce recipe that she learned from a Bob Blumer workshop. And the sauce was so mind blowing she agreed to let me post the recipe. Thanks Mel!

The thing that makes this tomato sauce so great is that it requires very few ingredients, it only takes a few minutes to make and the tomatoes are actually grated into the sauce, which gives it a fantastically fresh taste. This sauce is a keeper.

Tomato Sauce (2 servings with fresh pasta)
adapted from Bob Blumer's recipe

1 tbsp olive oil
2 shallots, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, minced
2-3 tomatoes
salt and pepper

Optional
fresh basil, finely chopped
parmesan


Pan fry the olive oil and shallots until soft, and then add the garlic and chili flakes. Let the garlic cook for a minute or two until lightly browned and then grate 2-3 tomatoes into the pan. Cook until heated through. When doing this you will find you are holding mostly tomato skin at the end, discard this excess tomato skin. Add fresh basil if you wish, Season with salt and pepper to taste and pour onto your favorite pasta. Garnish with parmesan cheese.