Chimichurri Sauce

Last week for my weekly cooking club/class we decided to do a simple grilled skirt steak-sans the BBQ as I don't have one in my small NYC apartment, topped with an amazing Chimichurri Sauce. As you probably picked up by now, I'm pretty partial to the tastes of Argentina. Who could blame me? Specially after living there for 9 years as a child, and still visit whenever possible. But the truth is the food is simply wonderful and fresh. All we did to our skirt steak, or as the Argentines & Latin Americans would call churrasco, was salt and pepper it. Then we cooked it with a little olive oil in a cast iron skillet to achieve the "grill" taste.

We topped our steak with the chimichurri sauce that adds a whole other dimension of flavor to any steak. Traditionally the sauce uses a mixture of parsley and cilantro, but I prefer a cilantro based sauce. I also cut back a little on the olive oil to create more of a creamy texture, rather than having the herbs linger in a tub of oil. A lot of people also add red pepper flakes to the mix, but I really believe this isn’t even needed as the garlic adds just enough heat to the sauce.

You could also use this sauce as a marinade for nearly any kind of meat or fish or vegetable- its THAT good.

Ingredients:

Cilantro-1 large bunch
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tbsp water
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (optional)

Place all ingredients in a blender. Don't bother chopping the cilantro or the garlic. The blender does all the work for you. Mix until smoothe and creamy. Season additionally to taste.

Feel free to add more garlic or the crushed red peppers too. If its not blending enough you can always add a few extra drizzles of olive oil or water. And remember, cook to YOUR TASTE, if you don't like a particular ingredient, swap it out!