Argentina · Plate 10 of 10
Chimichurri
The green sauce that turns up beside every grill in the country. Raw, sharp, and finished in ten minutes.
- Prep
- 10 min
- Serves
- About 250 ml (1 cup)
- Difficulty
- Easy
Every Argentine household has a version of this and every version is correct. The arguments are about whether it takes oregano, whether the garlic is chopped or crushed, and whether anyone should ever put it on before cooking. (No.)
What follows is the plain Buenos Aires version — the one that shows up in a jar on the table next to the bread, before the meat has even started coming off the grill.
- 60 ml¼ cupred wine vinegar
- 1 tsp1 tspfine salt
- 4 cloves4 clovesgarlicfinely chopped, not crushed
- 30 g1 cupflat-leaf parsleyleaves and thin stems, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp2 tbspfresh oreganoor 2 tsp dried
- 1 tsp1 tspred pepper flakes
- 120 ml½ cupneutral oil or mild olive oil
Method
Stir the vinegar and salt together in a bowl until the salt dissolves. This takes about a minute and it matters — undissolved salt sits at the bottom and the sauce tastes flat.
Add the garlic and let it sit in the vinegar for 10 minutes. The acid takes the raw bite off it.
Stir in the parsley, oregano, and pepper flakes.
Pour in the oil and stir. Do not blend it. Chimichurri is a chopped sauce, not an emulsion, and a food processor turns it into green paste.
Let it stand at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before serving. It is better after two hours and better still the next day.
What I learned
- Chop the parsley by hand. I tried the food processor first and got something that looked like pesto and tasted bitter.
- It keeps two weeks in the fridge, but the garlic gets louder every day. Bring it back to room temperature before serving or the oil stays cloudy.
- This is not a marinade. It goes on after the meat comes off the fire.