Because of the long weekend that I’ve mentioned earlier, I thought I’d make a few extra things yesterday to kick this post off.
I’ve been reading Aaron Franklin’s book, Franklin Steak: Dry-Aged. Live-Fired. Pure Beef, and I learned a few new things about cooking steak, and the ideal ways to cook certain cuts of beef.
I’m no stranger to making steak at home, but learning about other techniques, origins of grilling techniques, and even places to order meat online, was pretty cool. Near the end of the book, Aaron brings up some recipes for sauces and other accompaniments that go well with steak, and I decided to do the one featured on the cover: the salsa verde.
The beef in all it’s glory.
It’s pretty simple to make, and although it was packed with flavor, it was really refreshing to eat, and paired so well with the steak. Might have to do with the acidity of the lemon zest and capers in the sauce. I think the flavor really comes through because of the chopped anchovies.
Although you see a little bit of it on the steaks, I’ve completely forgot to take pictures of the actual sauce and the process of making it since I wanted to show it off. Again, super simple, and I’ll out how I went about making this. You can read more at the jump!
Ingredients:
2 bunches parsley, flat-leaf
4-6 cloves garlic
3 olive oil-packed anchovy fillets
1 tsp. fine salt (sea salt is what I used)
1/4 cup small capers, drained
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. honey
1 tsp. rice vinegar
1 lemon
Pro strats: If you want to make this, make it hours in advance, or even overnight, before you make your steak.
You want the flavors to sit
1. Pick the parsley leaves from the stems and throw away the stems. You’ll want to collect all the leaves, and then finely chop the parsley. Once that’s all chopped up all nice and fine, set it in a bowl.
2. If you’ve got a mortar and pestle, throw the garlic and the salt into the mortar, and grind the heck out of the garlic and the salt to make a paste. If you don’t have one, you can use the back of your knife to smash the garlic. Salt the garlic, and then continue to chop and flatten with the back of your knife until you get a nice paste going. Rubbing the mixture with the back of your knife will help with the paste process too.
3. Once you’ve got your garlic paste, chop up the anchovy fillets and add to the garlic paste, and doing the paste process again. Once your paste is ready, go ahead and add it to the bowl of parsley.
4. Next, you’ll want to finely chop your capers. Add the capers to the bowl.
5. With a zester, zest the lemon and add it to the bowl with everything else. If you’re like me and don’t have a zester, use a vegetable peeler to peel the lemon, cut into thin strips, and then chop it all up, so you get zest-like pieces to add to the bowl.
6. Lastly, add the oil, honey, and vinegar to the bowl and mix it well. Store it in a container with a tight cap, and let it sit overnight so you can let all the flavors of the ingredients come together. You’ll want to bring it to room temperature when you’re ready to serve it.
Really easy to make, and really goes well with almost everything. I even made some potato wedges and was adding a little bit of the salsa verde on them. I think it would go great on fish and chicken.
Definitely recommend this recipe to y’all, and the book as well, since it’s got a lot of cool info about... well... everything about beef! It’s more of like a really friendly science textbook than a cookbook. I’m still going through it, but I’m having a blast reading it.
Here’s a link to a Barnes and Noble page where you can buy the book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/franklin-steak-aaron-franklin/1129798712;jsessionid=0083AD1EA6663970F09D2187359F7FC0.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781984857125#/
(Don’t worry! I don’t benefit from the link! I just wanna share some good info!)
