Love it or hate it – Mojo verde

Coriander – I know, this is one of those love-it-or-hate-it herbs (Read also this article on coriander/cilantro on Food52.). And if you’re on the hate-it-side you’re allowed to skip this post, because the basic ingredient of this herby dip is coriander.

But as I am definitely in the club of coriander lovers, I fell in love with this sauce the first time I tasted it. It was in a Spanish tapas bar and nearly each tapas was served with those three dipping sauces: mojo verde, mojo rojo (red sauce with tomatoes and red peppers), and some kind of allioli (garlic mayonnaise).

Literally mojo means nothing else than dip – and nearly everything can be dipped into mojos. And although there are mojos all around the spanish speaking world, they’re are particularly associated with the Canary Islands. Whether mojos “originally” come from the Canaries or not – who knows … either way, mojos are deeply rooted in the Canary cuisine…

…and as Mallorca is kind of a 17th state of Germany, it’s no wonder that especially mojo verde is quite popular with Germans, too. Traditionally it is served with papas arrugadas, Canarian wrinkly potatoes, but, as I mentioned before, you can dip nearly everything into it, spread it on a slice of bread, marinate meat in it, use it as salad dressing, drizzle it over frittata or quiche…. It’s really versatile … You only should love coriander!

I adapted my recipe from Tim Mälzer, the “German Jamie Oliver” who lives part of the year – like so many Germans – on Mallorca. I had read a few other recipes though, too. Some use only coriander and no parsley, there is a discussion whether vinegar or lime juice is better and how much of it, and the amount of garlic varies between 1 and 10 cloves! I used only one for 1½ bunch of herbs, cause I didn’t want the intense flavour of raw garlic dominate too much. And I was a bit careful with the use of hot peppers, too. (I used a red one, cause MY market stand only had red ones and I was to lazy to go to another market stand just for one pepper. A green one would obviously fit better to the colour scheme of this sauce 😉 ) After all, you don’t want your taste buds to be narcotized – and I’m not up to those “How hot can you eat?”-macho-contests, either.

Mojo verde (about 250 ml)
[adapted from Tim Mälzer]

ingredients
1 bunch of coriander, ½ bunch of parsley, 1 small green pepper, ½-1 hot pepper, juice of 1 lime, 80 ml olive oil, ½ teaspoon salt, dash of sugar

preparation
Wash peppers and herbs. Remove stem and core of green pepper and stem of hot pepper. Peel and roughly chop garlic. Remove big herb sprigs, roughly chop the rest.

Mix everything in a blender until smooth. I would recommend to start with ½ hot pepper, then give it a try and maybe add some more.

Mojo verde keeps in the fridge for a few weeks. If you want to store it longer, freeze in small portions (f.ex. ice cube moulds).