Photo: Claudia Concas
Green Sauce: the Piedmontese Sauce for Serving with Meat
Parsley: 100g
Eggs: 2
Bread: 30 g
White wine vinegar: 25 ml
Garlic: 1
Anchovies: 3
Capers: 10
Extra virgin olive oil
The zingy green Italian sauce made with parsley, capers, egg, bread and anchovies, a perfect accompaniment to Italian bollito misto. Piedmontese green sauce: the original recipe explained step by step.
Alongside mostarda (candied fruit in a mustard-flavoured syrup) and the more classical mayonnaise, Piedmontese boiled meats are served with green sauce. This is a sauce made from parsley and anchovies which enhances meat dishes. The recipe for green sauce is very simple and requires no cooking.
Here’s how to prepare it in a few simple steps.
Method
Wash and dry the parsley thoroughly and then chop finely.
Remove the crusts from the stale bread and slice into small pieces. Place the bread in a bowl and sprinkle with the vinegar. Leave to rest for a few minutes and then squeeze the bread to remove the excess liquid.
Place the bread into a mixer bowl. Add the anchovies, the desalted capers and the garlic, taking care to remove the core.
Blend the ingredients into a paste.
Add the chopped parsley to the contents of the mixer bowl.
Hard boil the eggs, remove the shells and set the yolks aside.
Add the egg yolks to the other ingredients by passing them through a fine sieve.
Mix all the ingredients thoroughly and add the oil gradually until the mixture assumes the consistency of a proper sauce.
Taste and, only if required, add salt.
Useful tips and interesting facts
Green sauce, also known as bagnetto or bagnetto verde, is a sauce of ancient origin and yet, down through the years, the recipe has remained unchanged. It works marvellously with boiled meat as well as with ox tongue.
Since its ingredients include anchovies and capers preserved in salt, it's always advisable to taste the sauce before adding salt, to avoid the risk of overdoing it.
This recipe calls for garlic but if you prefer a lighter version, remove the inner core from the garlic clove. In this way, your green sauce will be more digestible.
For a perfect egg yolk, place the eggs in a pan of cold water. Bring to the boil and remove the eggs after 9 minutes.
A perfectly executed green sauce also depends on the parsley being dried thoroughly before it is chopped.
Recipe Twists
Try making green sauce with the addition of other chopped herbs such as basil, thyme and marjoram.
For a more modern version of Piedmontese mixed boiled meats (bollito misto), pull the meat apart and dress it with oil, salt, pepper and a sprinkling of vinegar. Toast two pieces of sliced bread and fill them with the meat and a generous dollop of green sauce. Here you have an all-Italian version of the famous and iconic Japanese sandwich, the katsu-sando.
