In the Canary Islands there's a good chance that your traditional meals will come with a side of mojo-- different local sauces that people pair with everything from meat to fish to potatoes. While the most famous mojo sauce is the red and slightly spicy mojo picón, the mojo verde (green mojo) definitely gives it a run for its money.
Made with cilantro, parsley, green peppers and garlic, this delicious Canarian sauce is the perfect condiment for grilled fish or roasted potatoes like the famous Canarian papas arrugadas.
While finding native Canarian peppers is nearly impossible away from the islands, mojo verde sauce is easy to adapt to what you have available at home.
Canarian Mojo Verde Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 bunch of cilantro
- ½ a bunch of parsley
- 5 large garlic cloves
- 2 small green peppers of choice you can use something spicy, or 1 cup of chopped green bell pepper, chopped
- 1-2 teaspoons sea salt adjust for salt after blending the first time
- ¼ teaspoon cumin
- 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil quality counts!
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
Instructions
- Remove the stems from the cilantro and parsley and roughly chop the leaves
- Roughly chop the garlic and mash it to a paste in a mortar and pestle
- Add the cilantro, parsley, mashed garlic, chopped pepper, sea salt and cumin to a blender or food processor and pulse a couple of times.
- Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while blending slowly (you don't want to over process the sauce, the truly traditional way would be to do it all in a mortar and pestle).
- Add the vinegar to taste, and then adjust for salt and cumin.
Nutrition
What will you pair with your mojo verde sauce?
Feature photo by Larry on flickr CC.
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dirk
Sorry to correct you a little bit: The taste of cilantro is in the stems, not in the leaves (as e.g. Jamie Oliver always says). If you remove the stems, you remove most of the cilantro taste. Why don't you just put everything into the blender and that's it? That's the way how every Canarian houseman/wife is doing it when the prepare the mojo verde. (I have been working at the Canary Islands for several years...)
Giulia
I tried this yesterday and I did leave the stems for extra flavour.
However, they got tangled around my blades and jammed the blender LOL.
So maybe it was just my blender but next time I'll cut them off.
The flavour is absolutely delicious and I loved it so much that I made two batches so I have a stash in the freezer!
I tried it on fish and it was just perfect.