Ravigottesaus

At the fish stall, the sauce is never the main thing. That is how you know it matters. You order kibbeling, those crisp little pieces of battered white fish, and beside them comes a pale green ravigottesaus in a plastic cup, sharp with vinegar, busy with parsley and capers, doing the work no lemon wedge can quite manage.

The name already tells you its first passport is French. Ravigote belongs to ravigoter, to revive or put strength back into someone, and the old French sauce was exactly that: herbs, acid, mustard, and bite, made to wake tired meats and fish. But let me tell you a secret. The Dutch took the idea and made it behave at the quay. Less ceremony, more spoon. Mayonnaise or oil as the base, pickles and capers for salt, parsley and chives for green freshness, vinegar enough to cut through fried fish.

Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple. Chop finer than you think, because this sauce is not a salad wearing mayonnaise. Let it rest ten minutes so the capers, pickles, mustard, and herbs stop shouting separately and become one bright voice. Then put it next to fried fish, boiled potatoes, cold herring, or even a hard-boiled egg, and watch the small green sauce do its old work: reviving the plate.