This week’s Food Matters Project is a wild card — we got to pick whatever we had missed in the past 6 months! I knew immediately what I wanted to do. Ever since I started this project, I keep hearing the other bloggers talk about the fantastic chimichurri sauce I missed the week before my first post. I’ve been dying to try it, and thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

The original recipe is Mixed Grill with Chimichurri, but I had to sauté since I don’t have a grill. I made it with green peppers, a baby eggplant, hot banana peppers, onion, and pan cooked white fish. Everyone was right — this was a fantastic recipe! And as a bonus, I finally found out the name for the amazing green sauce that comes with takeout from the El Salvadoran place on 14th St. The hardest part was washing and pulling the leaves off the cilantro, which I opted for over parsley. Here’s how I did the chimichurri sauce.

Chimichurri sauce, from The Food Matters Cookbook

2 cups cilantro leaves (some small stems are okay)
1/2 cup oil
2 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
red pepper flakes

Put the cilantro, 1/4 cup of the oil and salt and pepper in a food processor and blend. Scrape down the sides of the container and add the rest of the oil, then the vinegar and red pepper flakes, while it runs. Blend a few more seconds until it’s all combined and the cilantro is blended up nicely.

Check out all the other bloggers’ takes on the chimichurri recipe and see what everyone else picked for this week’s wild card here!