HOW TO GREEN YOUR DINNER.

Top everything (everything!) with a carpet of green tahini salsa and green herbs.

Here’s an idea that’s taking off around town and country. It’s a brilliant way to instantly green up your dinner. Especially brilliant, if your dinner is a little monochrome, shall we say.

With all the goodwill in the world, you can still end up sitting down at the table with a steak that has zero char, a chicken schnitzel that’s blotchy, or a skinless fish fillet that won’t ever look more exciting than a skinless fish fillet. I have faced all these things. And I have survived. Because I believe in the cult of The Greening.

To green your dinner, just top the offending meh-food with a slathering of richly green, herby tahini salsa, and ice it with a snipping of fresh green herbs. The salsa flavours go straight into and over every mouthful, and the herbs on top give crunch and freshness.

See? Here’s how it works with a simple dinner of salmon (very easy recipe below).

And here’s how one of my favourite sustainable-activist-chefs, Matt Stone turns out avocado and broadbean toast at his laid-back corner bar, You Beauty, in Bangalow, near Byron Bay. The chives are also spangled with finger lime, for extra points.

And here’s how top chef Brent Savage turns a pork chop into a thing of beauty at Brasserie 1930 at the luxe Capella Sydney hotel. It’s clever, because it means you don’t have to sacrifice tenderness for appearance. Just cook the pork chop gently, without trying for a crust or a char or grill marks, knowing that with this final dressing-up, it’s going to the table as a star.

BROCCOLI COUSCOUS ALERT (SEE ABOVE): Instead of using chives on top, Brent cuts broccoli into florets and shaves the green tips with a sharp knife, to make broccoli couscous. Toss them in a little olive oil with sea salt and pepper before spooning on top; they’re divine. (And use the leftover broccoli stems for soup).

HERE’S HOW TO GO GREEN.

You can use a bought pesto or salsa verde, but there’s greater joy to be found in whizzing up your own green salsa. The recipe below uses heaps of parsley with a smaller amount of a second herb that could be dill, coriander or basil. It’s part salsa verde, part green tahini sauce and part Andean uchucuta, and it’s very flexible and forgiving.

I particularly like the part the tahini plays, adding a velvety nuttiness that brings it all together. If you don’t have tahini, you could sub with Dijon mustard, which will do the same enriching and emulsifying job, or even half an avocado.

GREEN TAHINI SALSA

• 3 cups parsley leaves, loosely packed

• 1 cup coriander or basil, loosely packed

• 2 tbsp dill, roughly chopped

• 1 garlic clove, grated

• 1 slice jalapeno or 1 gherkin, chopped

• 1 tbsp pickle juice from jalapeno or gherkin jar

• 1 tbsp tahini

• 1 tbsp lemon juice, more to taste

• 4 tbsp (80 ml) extra virgin olive oil

• Generous sea salt, touch of black pepper

Blend the parsley, coriander or basil and dill with the garlic, jalapeno and pickle juice until it forms a paste.

Stop and scrape down the sides.

Add the tahini, lemon juice and olive oil, sea salt and pepper, and blend again until it comes together as a bright green salsa.

Taste for – well, everything, but especially sea salt and lemon juice – and adjust. It should taste bright and sparky, and move easily without being runny.

Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate; it will firm up as it chills.

Tips: By all means add a tablespoon of rinsed, salted capers, or a couple of anchovies to make it more salsa verde-ish, or some grated parmesan to make it more pesto-like. For less richness, do half extra virgin olive oil and half a more neutral oil such as rapeseed or grapeseed.

Allright, Ms Dupleix, I’m ready for my close-up.

SALMON WITH GREEN TAHINI SALSA

• 2 x 150 g salmon fillets ( I like NZ)

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 cup green tahini salsa

• 1 bunch chives, finely snipped

Heat the olive oil in the pan and cook the salmon over medium heat for 3 minutes.

Turn and cook for 1 minute, leaving it pink inside.  (If skin-on, cook the skin-side first, then flip it). A thick piece will take a little more cooking.

Transfer to a chopping board, spread the top with green tahini salsa right to the edges, and carpet with finely chopped herbs. Serves 2.

YOU CAN DO THIS TO ANYTHING. It doesn’t have to be salmon. It could be a panko-crumbed chicken schnitzel. Tuna and swordfish steaks. A baked jacket potato (cut in half lengthwise and ice with salsa and herbs). A bloody big steak. Grilled lamb cutlets. Pizza, fresh out of the oven (add the salsa, then top with slices of prosciutto). A cheese omelette. Roasted eggplant (cut in half lengthwise and roast cut-side down until soft and creamy inside, then flip over and ice with salsa and herbs). Grilled sourdough, spread with salsa, showered with herbs and topped with a poachy or the perfect rings of a hard-boiled egg. Or just serve the salsa as a dip for crisp raw vegetables.

Thanks for dropping by! As always, thanks for your comments. I especially loved the ones last week about how I should approach Arnott’s to extend their line of Australiana biscuits from Anzacs, to include Matildas. (Do we think it was my Matilda biscuits that got the team over the line last Saturday night? Of course we do). I’ll take your call, Mr Arnott, as long as you agree to a percentage of the profits going to fund women’s sport.

And thanks to the lovely peeps at Good Food for pushing them out into the wider world as well. And special thanks to the Matildas themselves, for showing the world a new way of playing (and watching) sport. And huge thanks to Terry for the snipping of multitudes of chives for this week’s post.

I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s only fair, folks.