Chilean · Sauce
Pebre Chileno
- Easy
- 15 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with wood-smoke running underneath, acid holding everything up to the light, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 1 large bunch coriander, leaves and fine stems, finely chopped
- 1 white onion, in 3 mm dice
- 2 green ají or green chillies, deseeded and minced
- 2 tsp merkén
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste with salt
- 60 ml sunflower oil
- 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 60 ml cold water
- salt
Equipment
Blender
The skills inside
Allergen screen
None found among the 14 screened.
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Soak the diced onion in cold salted water for 10 minutes, then drain and squeeze it dry in a cloth. 10 min
- Chop the coriander with a sharp knife in a few decisive strokes, never in a blender.
- Combine the onion, coriander, chilli, garlic and merkén, then beat in the oil, vinegar and water until the sauce falls loosely from a spoon.
- Salt it and leave it 20 minutes, until the merkén has swollen and stained the oil brick red; before that it tastes of nothing. 20 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Salted water & the float test 188 recipes
- The water was salted before anything went in, and tasting it confirms it: seasoned on the tongue, with the salt dissolved rather than sitting on the pot floor.
- There is enough water, hot enough, that the pot returns to its boil quickly after the food goes in and never stops moving.
- Where the dish uses the float as its signal, the signal is obeyed: the pieces rise and they come out then, not several minutes later once something else was finished.
- Nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pot or welded to itself, and the water has not thickened into a cloudy sludge.
- Drained on a bite rather than on the clock: resistance at the centre, with no chalky raw core.
Where it goes wrong The pot was too small and the water unsalted, so it never recovered its boil: the food sat in slack water, went gummy at the surface, and comes out bland in a way that no sauce afterwards can fix.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
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