The more I learn about food and try different recipes and cultures of food, the more I realize that essence of most main dishes (not fruits, side salads, etc.) is the sauce. Which is ironic, because I used to have the nickname "The Sauce" in college (alternatively, "Saucy")... most foods I've had would just not be the same without sauce: Hot dogs without ketchup/mustard/some sort of sauce, Mapo tofu without the mapo sauce, authentic sushi without the soy sauce...and now that I've delve into Korean cuisine, Korean food is all about sauces, from rice cakes to bean paste sauce, and some even stronger sauces.
Out of those abundances of sauces that I like comes this curious mixture of chopped parsley, garlic, olive oil, and spices....from the depths of South America, it's....chimichurri sauce! Good with potatoes, and.....really so far, just potatoes. Chimichurri is like the one friend who only hangs out with one best friend: does not mix well with others. It's also a little uninviting, to be honest: green, like chill sauce, but a deeper tone that makes it less welcoming to the palate; it's no wonder Asian cooking has stayed away from it and I never had any before the age of 35. Even now MJ's kind of hesitant about having it, but after a little coaxing and "just give it a try" energy, the jar of chimichurri that says it expired in December 2022 but we're still consuming anyway so we don't feel like we're wasting earth's natural resources.......is half gone! We did it! Put something to use that we didn't think we would use.
If chimichurri's not really your jam, a more welcoming, white creamy concoction (the color of mayonnaise, milk, and all kinds of rich food) is tzatziki sauce, the Greek blend of yogurt, cucumber, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice.....can have it almost with anything, the tzatziki will likely overpower the taste of the other thing and provide the flavor. I've had tzatziki on pizza dough, tzatziki with rice, tzatziki with salad, and just scooped tzatziki into my mouth by the spoon before (don't try this with peanut butter, I tried once and got sick, too much of a good thing everywhere all at once).
That's kind of the lesson of preparing food nowadays for me: try different combinations of things. Tonight I had potatoes with pasta sauce on top, when ketchup was getting old; the food prep company (similar to Blue Origin) that supplies us with food recipes often leaves extra portions of stuff, especially sauces, which we can never finish; I just dip different food items into different sauces, kind of like a chef understanding how certain things go together. That really is the best artistic ideas of a chef: figuring out what tastes good with what else, like a fashion designer knowing what top outfit matches with the pants/dress, shoes, headwear, etc. The sauce is the scarf tied around the neck to top off everything, or a symbol worn next to the chest: It doesn't have many practical application of getting the consumer the calories they need, but it's what people remember and reveals about their taste. Respect the sauces!
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