Basics for a quick chop of persillade

Maybe you could call persillade a condiment, for it heightens flavors of vegetables or meats – but it isn’t in the strain of sauces or relishes, much simpler in fact.  The vagabond has encountered this traditional southern seasoning pressed into lamb chops, sprinkled over magret/duck breast, and divinely stirred into fried potatoes Sarladais just before serving.  Great results with just two ingredients:  finely chopped fresh garlic (now is the hour) and parsley leaves (also tender in early summer).  Days when the canicule/heat wave calls for a “the simpler the better” approach, and persillade is just that.  Ingredients finely chopped or minced with a sharp blade are basic, and my  tool of choice is a two-handled hachoir.  This can be done with a whizz of the food processor’s blades, but it tends to chop in a blink to the point of mashed parsley. Not my favorite, but use it if you don’t mind washing up; a sharp knife is the ecological choice, non?

All chopped together, put it in a jar for later use

Whether you refer to them as haricots verts, French beans or simply string beans, market stalls this month are heaped with them, straight from the bush.  The vagabond heads out early to get haricots fins – the skinny little ones loaded with flavor – before these delicate beans wilt in the heat of the day.  What could be simpler than a handful of  beans for each serving, nipped and snipped, then  steamed for a few minutes?  Sea salt and freshly ground pepper, a drizzling of good olive oil (okay – or sweet butter if you please).  This is obvious, a classic everyone knows how to set before the queen or king with tonight’s grilled chicken, fish or ribs.  Not that I am into gilding the lily of the beans’, natural flavor, but observing traditions in the French southwest, I have picked up some other enhancers.  Slivered and seared meaty smoked bacon (called ventrèche fumé in the southwest) is great tossed with the beans in a bowl to serve….with lemon, bien sûr.  But for our small mountain of haricots verts tonight, I’ll mix up a savory persillade .

Simple, light, and delish...

To make persillade, I follow the basic proportions given by Kate Ratliffe in  A Culinary Journey in Gascony (10 Speed Books, 1995). Two thirds flat-leaved parsley leaves – reserve the stems to mince into a tomato sauce – to one third new garlic:  3 plump cloves chopped up with 1 cup leaves is about right. If you are garlic-shy, cut it back – otherwise, venture into the garlicsphere with a ratio of half and half.  Choose beans that are about the same length and thickness for uniform cooking.  Wash and trim green beans, allowing about 1 handful for each serving, with 1 or 2 white onions, quartered. Put them in the top pan of a vegetable steamer, to steam until you taste one that meets your own measure of crunch, cooked tender or….al dente. Turn them out into a serving bowl or plate them and sprinkle the persillade over the steaming beans; add a twist of sea salt & cracked pepper – a squirt of lemon if you like.  A fine side for a summer night… or a main plate for lunch.

The French word, persil, is the origin of persillade, but that doesn’t seem to deter chefs and cooks from adapting this classic to all sorts of variations with other herbs.  Chef Ivan Flowers at Fournos in Sedona, Arizona uses butter as a base, makes a persillade with basil (a basillade?), rolls it up to chill and slices up the seasoned butter to garnish meats.  A persillade in the hands of Ina Garten becomes a seasoning for a butterflied leg of  lamb by adding bread crumbs, lemon zest with two cups of chopped parsley to three cloves of garlic (chopped in a processor) – all to enhance the lamb.  Another cook does a mint persillade (a menthiade?) over pork, as other cooks scatter more classic persillades over a bowl of mussels or sautéed gambas shrimp. So, once you start chopping, allow enough for tonight’s haricots – but make a good batch so a jar is in the fridge to bring a touch of southern France to your daily fare.

Note: For more on Serious Chopping tools, see Dorie Greenspan’s recent post on mezzalunas – to answer any questions on how Italian cooks mince the fillings for ravioli and tortellini – not to mention persillade‘s cousin gremollata – so efficiently.  See her post of 7 July on: www.doriegreenspan.com . Put her new, upcoming book on your autumn cooking (for release 8 October 2010) list:  Around my French Table.