Wild Garlic Chimichurri

Wild garlic can be used to replace both herbs and garlic in recipes to great effect, and so it's unsurprising that the use of wild garlic in pesto has been rather ubiquitous amongst the foodies of social media the last few weeks. However there are more to herb sauces than pesto, and you can also used wild garlic for salsa verde, chermoula and chimichurri. Chimichurri is a herb sauce combining parsley, oregano, olive oil, red wine vinegar and chilli, and can usually be found dressing steaks in Argentina. The tangy red wine vinegar element makes it an excellent companion for fatty steak. There are lots of different variations on the recipe, and this is just one way of doing it. 

Here it is served tossed through butter beans, on toast spread with soft goats cheese, but I did also test it out with a sirloin steak (what a treat) and can confirm that they are made to go together - wow! 

For the wild garlic chimichurri
10 leaves of wild garlic
Handful parsley
1/2 tsp dried oregano
pinch chilli flakes
5 tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

1. You can blend eveything together in a food processor, but I prefer a herbier texture, so just chop the wild garlic and parsley finely on a chopping board, transfer to a small bowl and stir through the rest of the ingredients and season to taste.
2. To serve as per the picture, spread some soft goats cheese on 2 slices of toast, toss through 1 tbsp of the chimichurri in half a 400g tin of butter beans then pile on the toast. Finish with an extra drizzle of the chimichurri and add some chickweed to garnish.

Leftover chimichurri can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days in a sealed container. 

Recipe by Ceri Jones