Wednesday, July 13, 2011

A Feisty Caribbean Sauce Called ‘Sauce Chien’


A couple of years back I spent a few months in the Caribbean. More precisely, I was on the island of Martinique. I know… I was really lucky! While I was there, I met a chef who was kind enough to teach me the local way of cooking. In exchange, I would spend some time in his restaurant, waitressing. Nothing too stressful (the island way!) and it was all worth it. It was such an amazing experience. On top of learning great recipes, I learned how to make local drinks (yummy!), and learned the true way of cooking when you’re in a tropical country: in a kitchen where flies are all over the place and ants make little trails along the walls. Lets just say the sanitary rules are not the same over there as the ones we have here, in North America!

A great way to give some kick to fish or meat in Martinique is by covering it with a sauce called ‘sauce chien’. It’s basically pickled onions. I love onions and vinegar so this really satisfies my taste and gives my food that special island kick. It’s a feisty, simple yet very effective sauce, one which is perfect to enhance your summer meals. I even use the leftover sauce in my salads. Why not? After all, it’s made of onions and vinegar!

SAUCE CHIEN
 
INGREDIENTS
½ big white onion, diced extremely finely
White vinegar
2 small tomatoes, emptied and cut in very fine dices
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt

PREPARATION
Put the finely diced onions in a bowl. Cover completely with white vinegar. Add the tomatoes and the vegetable oil. Add some salt to taste (you need at least 1 tbsp).







Serve on top of a whole grilled fish of fish fillets. In the Caribbean they use Red Snapper. I used Pangasius and it was delicious!


1 comment:

  1. Looks really yummy! Love onions and vinegar too!

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