Green Sauce
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Green Sauce is the name of several rather different sauces containing mainly herbs, namely the Italian salsa verde, the French sauce verte, and the German grüne Soße or Frankfurter Grie Soß.
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History
The basic recipe is probably from the Near East and is at least 2000 years old. Roman legionaries brought it to Italy, from where it was exported to France and Germany. Evidence suggests that it was introduced in Frankfurt am Main by the Italian trading families Bolongaro and Crevenna around 1700. The German variant uses a different mix of herbs, since Mediterranean herbs were not available in Germany at the time.
Italian salsa verde
The Italian salsa verde is a bread sauce, and includes parsley, vinegar, capers, garlic, anchovies, and possibly mustard. The bread is soaked in vinegar and blended with the other ingredients, which creates an emulsion somewhat similar to vinaigrette.
French sauce verte
The French sauce verte au pain was already known in the Renaissance, and was originally a bread sauce very similar to the Italian. Today, however, the term frequently refers to a kind of mayonnaise flavoured with tarragon, and sometimes parsley and sage. Lemon juice is often used instead of vinegar.
German Grüne Soße
The traditonal Hessian green sauce is most popular in the Frankfurt am Main area. It is made from hardboiled eggs, oil (not olive oil), vinegar, salt, and generous amount of seven fresh herbs, namely borage, sorrel, cress, chervil, chives, parsley, and burnet. Variants include dill, lovage, lemon balm and even spinach. In more frugal times, daisy leaves, broad plantain leaves, and dandelion leaves were also used. Since the sauce is mainly an emulsion of fat and egg yolk, it may be classified as a kind of mayonnaise (though normal mayonnaise uses raw yolks). Today, buttermilk, quark, or yogurt is often added in order to reduce the oil content of the sauce.
The sauce is served with potatoes boiled in the skin. Cider is a good drink to go with it. This was supposedly Goethe's most favourite meal; however the legend that his mother invented it is certainly untrue.