What can I say about parsley and garlic?
"Such an Italian flavour" Giorgio Locatelli
"Parsley loves garlic, and their marriage rarely fails to be a happy one." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall/The Guardian
I'm very slowly working my way through this book - another Op shop find and gift from my friend Monika. It will take me a while as there are a whole lot of mini, and not so mini essays scattered throughout the book about Locatelli's life, and also about ingredients. One of the earliest of the ingredient ones was about parsley and garlic - headed by the quote at the top of this page 'such an Italian flavour' which I have to say I was not really aware of. Well there is gremolata, but that has lemon rind as well. Locatelli is talking about just parsley and garlic.
I was intrigued - especially now that I have looked in the index and see that it is nowhere featured as a major component of a recipe - not quite true - there is Steamed hake with parsley and garlic, but there's other things in that with the parsley and garlic of course.
This mini essay was indeed mini - but it did include a couple of things worth noting - the first was how to chop it:
"We put the garlic cloves on a chopping board and squash them in a rough paste with the back of a knife. Then we put the parsley on top and chop it quite finely so that the crushed garlic is chopped too. That way the garlic becomes almost a pulp, and it releases its flavours into the parsley and vice-versa."
That's in the restaurant - what they do first thing. At home is a bit different:
"Whenever I am wondering what to cook - 'Shall I do this? Shall I do that?' - Plaxi (his wife) always tells me, 'Just do your parsley and garlic!' She knows that whatever I do, I will use them, and also that by the time I have stopped talking and finished chopping I will have decided what I'm going to cook."
I also checked out the River Cottage A to Z book where Pam Corbin is in charge of parsley with a slightly different way to chop it:
"The only real skill in all these recipes is in the chopping. Make sure your parsley is clean and dry, then strip the leaves from the main stem. Roll these tightly into a cigar shape and roughty shred them, using a heavy chef's knife. Then, holding the handle of the knife in one hand the tip with the other, chop away with a see-sawing motion, traversing across the leaves until the parsley is chopped to the required size."
She also had a recipe for a Potato and parsley bake which I tried recently. One interesting thing that she did was to put the parsley stalks in with the potatoes when she par-boiled them - something to take note of when you are boiling veg - maybe even rice - any time soon. It was a simple recipe that included the garlic, an onion and some cream. The verdict? 'Sort of comfortably bland. 3-4 stars.' Which I guess is not much of a recommendation.
Maybe a touch of lemon would have improved it, and I have to say that lemon begins to sneak into a lot of the things that I looked at - beginning with two other Italian classics - Pasta olio e aglio and gremolata. However, having been sucked in by Locatelli's mini essay I decided I would see where I could go with parsley and garlic. Well further than you might think perhaps, but maybe, mostly not in surprising directions.
So let's begin with that pasta olio e aglio - my chosen example is Spaghetti with olive oil, parsley and garlic from The Flourishing Foodie and I chose it because it didn't have any chilli - a very common addition, or anchovies or lemon - other common additions. It was indeed just parsley and garlic - and olive oil of course. I'm happy to include olive oil or butter in this ramble around my main two ingredients.
Mind you I see that in the photograph there is a piece of lemon to squeeze over the dish - and whilst there is a fair amount of parsley - more than most other examples I saw which, seemed to be a mere few sprinkles it's still not a lot - which is exactly what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall thinks is wrong with people's attitude to parsley as a whole:
"It's high time we all forgot this leaf's heritage as food tinsel and started appreciating it for the magical vegetable it is."
To be fair however, although this dish almost always is finished off with parsley the title is just oil and garlic.
Gremolata however, is different because the lemon rind is essential - it's a differently glorious thing.
The parsley is key for today's post though, and here I absolutely agree with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall when he says:
"It's not always a waste of time to sprinkle chopped parsley on, say, buttered new potatoes, but you need a proper fistful to make it work, and you want proper little flecks of leaf, not grey-green dust."
And what better way to use it than to make a simple sauce as in this Easy garlic parsley sauce - Heartful Table - which - oh dear - I see has a squeeze of lemon in it. I sort of give up on the lemon. There are lots of similar recipes out there, but look how vibrantly green it is, and there's lots of garlic in it too - plus the olive oil to pull it all together of course. Throw the lot in a food processor and blend to your desired consistency and you have a sauce that can be used in any way that you can think of - marinade, a finishing touch, dollops in stews, and risottos, and soups, or thinned down with more olive oil and drizzled over breads, and salads, and cheese. It's a more delicate kind of Extra Good Thing à l'Ottolenghi that you can put in a jar, cover the top with oil and put in the fridge. It will be good for weeks.
A classic use of a parsley and garlic sauce is with snails, as we had all those years ago at Paul Bocuse's Lyon restaurant. It was served as an amuse bouche and so I ate it, even though I would never have chosen it from a menu. And it was superb - the best dish of the evening - or at least the most memorable. And that was all because of the garlic and parsley sauce. Not olive oil based however. This was France - and so lots of butter. If you feel like having a go - probably not - you can try this recipe French escargot with parsley garlic butter sauce from Cooking with Wine
A sauce, can of course have nuts and cheese added to make it into a pesto, but you've moved away then from the basic two. Or you can add more oil and make it into a flavoured oil. I think if you are going to do this properly you should heat the oil with the garlic and parsley, leave to infuse and then strain. In Spain they have a sauce called Ajo perejil which can be bought in a bottle or made at home in a more rough and ready way.
Don't forget as well that aioli is just mayonnaise with lots of garlic - so you can easily add a lot of parsley too to add another flavour. Now that would work well in a potato salad for example.
Going back to the French butter how could we ignore garlic butter - or more specifically the kind of garlic butter that I make which has parsley in it as well? I'm sure you all know how to make it - but this recipe Parsley garlic butter - Chez le Rêve Français is a good place to start if you don't. And you can do more with garlic butter than just make garlic bread of course - this recipe for Garlic butter potatoes with parsley - Giangi's Kitchen was one of the more interesting ones because of the crispy garlic. And I also saw a recipe for Chicken Kiev - Chef John/All Recipes, which used a parsley garlic butter rather than the traditional pure butter. Well why not?
Almost finally - two actual recipes - Mackerel fillets stuffed with garlic and parsley - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall/The Guardian, and alas I have no photograph for this but I have two for this simple but unusual Charred garlic scapes with parsley butter - It's a Veg World After All - garlic scapes being the leaves of new garlic - that look a bit like thick chives. Probably not doable unless you grow your own garlic. And I believe October is when to plant it here. Must give that a try. All you do is plant individual garlic cloves - and wait.
Finally - salt - make your own fancy Garlic parsley salt - Cookin' Up Life
I have a lot of parsley in my garden at the moment. Too much really because it is going to seed before I can manage to pick enough stalks of parsley to prevent this happening. Maybe I should go and at least make a batch of sauce. I think it's a condiment that I would use a lot.
Thank you Giorgio. Thank you Monika yet again.
YEARS GONE BY
October 23
2023 - Gubbins
2022 - Nothing
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2019 - Nothing
2018 - A lion
2017 - Nothing
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