Family Tradition

Salad burnet is my favorite ingredient in green sauce. Green sauce is a specialty and a very traditional dish in Hesse (German state) and especially in Frankfurt/Main. Every spring my mother bought the herbs for green sauce on the market or from the farmers. Most sellers trade the herbs all together wrapped in white paper – sometimes even with the recipe. After my parents moved to Austria my mother is very eager to have all the herbs in her own garden because it’s nearly impossible to find or to buy some of the less usual herbs. Green sauce is a passion and a family tradition we pass on to the next generation.

Basic Recipe

Green sauce is made of seven (no more, no less!) herbs:

• parsley
• chive
• sorrel
• borage
• garden kress
• chervil
• salad burnet

Chop the herbs in tiny pieces and put them in a big salad bowl. Add sour creme (if you prefer the sauce less creamy add milk or soured milk) and mix it until there is a very smooth and green sauce. For the taste add salt, pepper (black or white), little bit vinegar (white!) and oil (sunflower, corn or canola oil but no olive oil!). Then cut two hard boiled eggs (of course without the eggshell …) into small to medium sized pieces and add them as well. Let the green sauce in the fridge for two hours.

Serve the green sauce with boiled potatoes and eggs. Sometimes it’s served with Frankfurter Rippchen, which are cured pork cutlets, slowly heated in sauerkraut or meat broth. With a glass of Frankfurter Apfelwein (very sour cider made of apples called Speierling) it would be absolute perfect.

Now I am hungry …