Here’s one of the great things about living in Colorado: While half the country spent last weekend closing up their backyard grills for the season, we’re still firing on all burners, and we will be nearly all year long.
Problem is, once you’ve grilled everything you can think of, from leeks to lamb shanks, it starts to get boring. That ubiquitious flavor of char, meant to be punchy, becomes pallid.
The answer? Doctor things up with a sauce.
Make a mustard sauce for your pork loin: Whisk together a couple of tablespoons of Dijon-style mustard with a dribble of red wine and a quarter-cup each of heavy cream and chicken broth, and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add chopped tarragon and a spritz of lemon juice.
Or, make a ginger-citrus sauce for your halibut fillet: Cook one smashed-and- minced garlic clove and about a half-teaspoon of minced ginger in a tablespoon of olive oil for 2 minutes, then whisk in a few tablespoons each of fresh lime juice, lemon juice and orange juice. Reduce by half, stir in a few chopped leaves of parsley, a few grates of nutmeg and a pat of butter.
Here’s my favorite new sauce, which is less like a sauce and more like a chopped condiment, from the September issue of Saveur magazine. There are dozens of versions of this sauce from all points in Mediterranean Europe.
Savory and vaguely piquant, sauce vierge (also called sauce vert, or salsa verde, or any one of a number of other things) is excellent on steak, fish, vegetables or bread.
Use this recipe as a starting point, and feel free to muck around with it to suit your own tastes. One muck-around I performed: I swapped out the jalapeños in favor of dried, crushed Urfa peppers from Turkey. (You can buy these locally at Savory Spice Shop, ). Also, I added about 2 teaspoons of grated lemon zest.
Sauce Vierge
From Saveur magazine, Issue 113. Makes about a cup, enough to dress four steaks or spoon over eight bruschettas.
Ingredients
1/4 cup roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon capers
12 large green olives, such as cerig nola, pitted and roughly chopped
6 oil-packed anchovy filets, drained and finely chopped
4 cornichons, roughly chopped
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 jalapeño, stemmed and finely chopped
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions
On a cutting board, pile together the parsley, capers, olives, anchovies, cornichons, shallots, garlic, and jalapeño. With a large knife, finely chop and scrape the ingredients to combine.
Transfer the parsley mixture to a large bowl and stir in 6 tablespoons of the olive oil and the mustard with a fork to make a thick and chunky sauce. (Drizzle in more olive oil for a thinner consistency, if you like.) Season with salt and pepper. Set the sauce aside at room temperature to let rest for 30 minutes to allow the flavors to mingle.
