When a giant globe of curly-leafed parsley showed up in my CSA share last week, I visibly frowned. I really don’t like the stuff and much prefer the milder and softer flat-leaf aka “Italian” parsley I grow myself. However, I was up for my own CSA Challenge and so I considered what to make with it.
Tabouleh was the safe choice … so I went in a completely different direction and decided to make a non-traditional version of a chimichurri sauce. I chose this because I wanted to pair it with a vegetarian taco I had decided to create. Chimichurri is a an Argentine sauce typically paired with grilled beef and which features parsley, garlic, vinegar, and oregano. Because I was going vegetarian, and ostensibly ‘Mexican,’ I decided to effectively to non-traditionally add an avocado to the sauce to give a kind of guacamole essence. As such, I also substituted lime for the vinegar and removed the oregano that I was instead going to use to season the squash. In this case, the curly leaf parsley and the stems, all loaded with flavour, is a better choice than the Italian version. The effect is a powerful and very flavourful sauce that pairs perfectly with my tacos of grilled yellow zucchini (recipe to follow). My apologies to any purists or Argentines out there … no offence intended.
Serve with Vegetarian Tacos with Grilled Zucchini.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: N/A
Total time: 10 minutes
Servings: 8
Avocado-Chimichurri Sauce
INGREDIENTS:
1 avocado- 1 cup of curly leafed parsley, with most of the stem
- 2 tablespoons of fresh cilantro
- 1 clove of garlic
- Juice of one large lime
- 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 jalapeño, seeded
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
DIRECTIONS:
In a blender or food processor (the food processor will be easier to get the sauce out of but the blender will produce a creamier sauce), combine all the ingredients together. Pulse and blend until smooth.
→ Taste for salt and acid, adding a bit lime juice, a teaspoon at a time, if necessary.
Spoon into a glass bowl and cover and refrigerate until ready.
Serves 8.
I would love to read your comments ....