Chimichurri () is an uncooked

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

used both as an ingredient in cooking and as a table condiment for grilled meat. Found in

Argentinian Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

, Nicaraguan and

Uruguayan Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

cuisines,Joyce Goldstein
The mysterious origins of chimichurri
''San Francisco Chronicle'' (October 5, 2012). the sauce comes in a

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

(''chimichurri verde'') and red (''chimichurri rojo'') version. It is made of finely chopped

parsley Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to the central and eastern Mediterranean region (Sardinia, Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, southern Italy, Greece, ...

, minced

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Welsh onion and Chinese onion. It is native to South Asia, Central Asia and northeas ...

olive oil Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: ...

oregano Oregano (, ; ''Origanum vulgare'') is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae. It was native to the Mediterranean region, but widely naturalised elsewhere in the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Oregano is a woody perennial ...

and red wine vinegar or

lemon juice The lemon (''Citrus limon'') is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China. The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culina ...

. It is somewhat similar to Moroccan chermoula.

Etymology

The name may be a variant of

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

''chirriburri'' 'hubbub', ultimately perhaps from Basque ''zurrumurru'' 'noise, rumor'. Another theory connects it to Basque ''tximitxurri'' 'hodgepodge', 'mixture of several things in no particular order'; many

Basques The Basques ( or ; eu, euskaldunak ; es, vascos ; french: basques ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Ba ...

settled in Argentina in the 19th century. Various, almost certainly

false etymologies A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology, pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a folk etymology, but this is also a ...

purport to explain the name as a corruption of English words, most commonly "Jimmy sCurry", "Jimmy McCurry", or "gimme curry", but no contemporary documentation of any of these stories has been found.

Preparation

Chimichurri is always made from finely chopped

, but other seasonings used vary.Maria Baez Kijac, ''The South American Table: The Flavor and Soul of Authentic Home Cooking from Patagonia to Rio de Janeiro, with 450 Recipes'' (Harvard Common Press, 2003), p. 337. Inclusion of red wine vinegar,

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

black pepper Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in dia ...

, red pepper flakes, and

sunflower The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a large annual forb of the genus ''Helianthus'' grown as a crop for its edible oily seeds. Apart from cooking oil production, it is also used as livestock forage (as a meal or a silage plant), ...

is typical (plus a shot of hot water). Some recipes add

shallot The shallot is a botanical variety (a cultivar) of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, ''Allium ascalonicum''. The taxon was synonymized with '' Allium cepa'' (the common onion) in 2010, as the ...

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...

, and

. Chimichurri may be basted or spooned onto meat as it cooks, or onto the cooked surface of meat as it rests. Chimichurri is often served as an accompaniment to ''asados'' (grilled meats). It may be served with grilled steaks or roasted sausages, but also with poultry or fish.

Other uses of the term

In the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

, ''chimichurri'' or ''chimi'' is a

hamburger A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, ...

topped with chopped cabbage and

salsa golf ' (Spanish for "golf sauce") is a cold sauce of somewhat thick consistency, common in Argentina. According to legend, it was invented by the physician Luis Federico Leloir in the mid-1920s at a golf club at the seaside resort Mar del Plata. Tire ...

. In the cuisine of León,

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

, ''chimichurri'' is a pizza topping of mayonnaise, mustard, chile de árbol, white vinegar, garlic, oil and salt. This dressing has an orange hue and is very popular in the city.

References

External links

{{Condiments Argentine cuisine Sauces Marinades Uruguayan cuisine

Etymology

Preparation

Other uses of the term

See also

References

External links