Dog sauce or how Creole cuisine can spice up your barbecue

Isabelle Curet

Published: 12/10/2015 13:25

This Creole vinaigrette perfectly accompanies fish, crustaceans, grilled meats and even raw vegetables. A must!

Dog sauce is a typical Antilles sauce, also found in Martinique and Guadeloupe. Every family has its own ingredients and proportions. Its name is derived from the Chien®, [Dog] knife, a brand which is very popular in the French overseas territories, used to thinly slice all the ingredients of the sauce. This Creole vinaigrette perfectly accompanies fish, crustaceans, grilled meats and even raw vegetables. It is available everywhere in Martinique, sometimes without olive oil.

Here is the recipe I learned with the chef Béatrice Fabignon, at the invitation of the Martinique tourist office. It's guaranteed authentic and delicious:

  • —  the juice of one lime 
  • —  1 onion
  • —  2 strands of chives
  • —  3 cloves of garlic
  • —  olive oil
  • —  1 teaspoon of finely-chopped flat parsley 
  • —  2 sweet chilli peppers
  • —  1 regular chilli pepper
  • —  ½ teaspoon of thyme
  •   2-3 bayleaves
  • —  1 small glass of boiling water

The main task in preparing dig sauce is to very finely chop all the ingredients. Sweet chilli peppers are not hot, by the way. Those with sensitive palates can leave out the other chilli pepper. 

 

Chop the peppers in two and remove the seeds. Very finely chop the chives (the white and the green parts), the onion, the garlic and the peppers, then add the salt and the hot water. The boiling water will tenderise the garlic and the onion.

Cover and allow to infuse for a few minutes.

When the mixture is lukewarm, add the parsley, lime juice, thyme and bayleaves, and stir well.

Add a good dose of olive oil (cover all of the ingredients of the preparation with it), and voilà! Enjoy.

OUR VERDICT

A tip for enjoying this sauce: it is perfect for sea bream carpaccio and also very good with "dasheens", compact local tubers typical of the Antilles.