Salsa Golf

Salsa golf, mayonnaise blended with ketchup, is the Argentine national condiment, as ubiquitous as chimichurri. The story goes that in the 1920s, a young Luis Federico Leloir, later a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, was dining at a golf club in Mar del Plata and, finding the plain mayonnaise boring, mixed it with ketchup. Whether the story is true or not, the sauce became a national institution, used on panchos (hot dogs), milanesas, salads, prawns and almost anything that benefits from a creamy, tangy, slightly sweet sauce. It is pink, smooth, and its flavour is richer and more complex than its two ingredients suggest, the acidity of the ketchup cutting the richness of the mayonnaise.

A smooth, pink, creamy sauce with the richness of mayonnaise and the tangy-sweetness of ketchup, more complex together than either alone. Squeezed onto hot dogs, milanesas and salads, it is the Argentine table's pink streak.

The technique is simply blending, but the proportions matter. Mayonnaise and ketchup are whisked together in a ratio of roughly two parts mayonnaise to one part ketchup, adjusted to taste. Some add a dash of whisky, brandy or orange juice for complexity (the golf club version reputedly included a splash of spirits). The key is that the ketchup must be incorporated smoothly, not streaked, producing a uniform pink sauce. The sauce is thicker than either ingredient alone, as the mayonnaise emulsion tightens with the ketchup's water content. It does not keep more than a few days, as the mayonnaise separates. No cooking is involved; it is a raw emulsion blend.