Salsa Verde Quotes

“SALSA VERDE.
A sauce made primarily of finely minced Italian parsley and cured anchovies... it is often a garnish for grilled meat or vegetable dishes... and is considered a staple sauce in Italian cuisine.
"What was he thinking? This was supposed to be a Japanese dish! Making something Italian means he automatically fails!"
"No, he does not. This salsa wasn't made from cured anchovies. Instead, it primarily uses uruka, a specific type of shiokara sauce made from sweetfish. *Shiokara is salted, fermented fish viscera.*
Uruka typically requires over a week to make. However, this is an "instant" version, is it not?"
"Correct! Wash sweetfish viscera and boil them in saké for two minutes. Then flavor with soy sauce, salt and mirin. The result is a quickly made, yet still rich and appropriately bitter, uruka.
"Instant uruka?!"
"I didn't know that was possible!"
"That wasn't the only place he was creative. Instead of parsley, he minced Japanese perilla leaves and green onion to give it a bright green color and refreshing kick. And since garlic is hardly used in traditional Japanese cuisine, he chose yuzukosho, a seasoning made from chili peppers, yuzu fruit peels and salt, to give it a distinctly Japanese flavor."
"Exactly. With instant uruka as its base...
... I made a Japanese-style salsa verde!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 3

“Jonathan had been celebrated at his original Jams restaurant for the deboned, grilled half chicken he served with fries. "But it was a different beast," he says, in comparison to the pollo al forno at Barbuto, which is now one of the city's most iconic dishes.
"I wanted to not waste anything," he says of the choice to roast the bird on the bone at Barbuto. Placing two halves of a chicken in a skillet, he dresses them with olive oil, sea salt, and fresh cracked pepper. He then roasts it in the wood-burning oven, basting it along the way to make succulent, brown, and crispy skin. Beneath, the meat becomes tender and juicy. After letting the pieces rest for a few minutes, he tops them with salsa verde, a mixture of smashed garlic, capers, cured anchovies, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a mash of herbs- such as parsley, tarragon, and oregano- and serves it so simply and yet it's so spectacular.
"It became one of my greatest hits," Jonathan acknowledges. "And when people love something, you don't deny them.”
― Amy Thomas, Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself