Flexistentialism Welcome Guest | Login or Register

And now for something completely different… A salsa recipe.

This is the basic salsa that Berg and I made the other night. It turned out delicious, so I thought I’d document it for your pleasure. Many people don’t realize how easy it is to make salsa, and I hope that maybe some people might give it a try.

Ingredients

• One 28oz can of diced tomatoes
• One small green pepper, or half of a big honkin’ one
• One small yellow or white onion
• A carrot
• A small can of green chilies
• Some pickled jalapeno slices or
• A few chipotle peppers, preferably in adobo sauce
• A few cloves of garlic
• A small handful of fresh cilantro
• Black pepper
• White pepper
• A li’l salt

• Some lime juice

  Procedure

  Its easy. Just dice everything up, and mix it together. I like to put the can of tomatoes (juice and all) in a blender, and hit it for about one second, just to chop it up a tiny bit finer, but thats it. Then I move the tomatoes into a bowl, and do the rest of the dicing by hand. Dice up the pepper, toss it in. Dice up the onion, toss it in. Grate the carrot (or dice it), and toss it in. Crack open that little can of green chilies, and toss it in. Slice up the jalepeno slices, and toss those mofos in. Then add a bit of the juice from the jar of pickled jalapenos, its vinegary and good. Then slice up the chipotle peppers and put them in. They are spicy, so watch out. I put in two medium sized peppers for medium spicyness. Put in one for mild, or three or four for more heat. Chop the cilantro up real fine, and toss it in. Same with the garlic. Add some black pepper. Then add some more. Add some white pepper too, if you’ve got it. Add a dash of salt and a squirt of lime and you are ready to rock.

  Then eat it. Actually, for maximum goodness, let it sit covered in the fridge overnight for the flavors to mix. But this is fresh salsa, you can eat it right away if you want (we do).

  Here are some notes on ingredients. First, remember that my recipes are very vague, and I like them that way. That means that if you really like something, or don’t like it, add more or less of it, thats fine. You can also leave things out if you don’t have them, but be careful that you don’t leave out too much, or you might be missing critical flavors.

  In this dish, the tomato and jalapeno or chipotle peppers are the core. If you have nothing else, you must have these two. Chipotle peppers are superior in many ways to regular jalapenos. They are jalapenos that have been deeply smoked underground, and they often come in a rich smoky sauce called adobo. There are few things in the world more flavorful than a chipotle. They are smoky, peppery, hot, and just damn hell ass delicious. If you are using fresh jalapenos, thats cool too, but you miss out on a bit of smokyness, and your salsa will be less homogenous, that is, you’ll have hot bites, and cooler bites as you hit the jalapeno bits. The smoking and pickling processes help bring out the spice and cause it to blend better with the rest of the salsa. If you are using pickled jalapenos, add some of the brine, its salty and vinegary and will add a bit of acid to your salsa that it can use.

  After you have these two basic ingredients, you need to elaborate on the flavor. I like green chilies, so I add a can. Add fresh ones too if you want. Fresh green peppers add a little bite of fresh coolness that I find delightful. Onions are important too, they add a good bite. Carrot is an odd one, people see carrot in there and they get a little question mark over their head. I don’t know why I put it in, but it belongs there. Of all the best salsa’s I’ve ever eaten, nearly all contained carrot. Why? I can’t say, but you should do it.

  For general seasoning, fresh garlic is super. Dice up a few cloves real fine and toss them in. Garlic salt will do the trick in a pinch, but fresh garlic is best, and it keeps for a long time, so don’t worry about keeping some on hand. Black pepper is good too, don’t skimp. White pepper adds a peppery flavor as well, but with less bite than black pepper. Its a good flavorful spice. A touch of salt can sometimes round things out a bit, but use your judgment, don’t add too much. A blast of lime juice is a nice flavor, and a good source of acid to help things blend flavors better.

  Cilantro is a touchy subject, but frankly I love it. Even if you don’t, you should still put some in, as it is key to this type of fresh salsa. I put a lot in usually. Consult with your other salsa eaters though, because I find cilantro is often a love/hate issue with people, and you don’t want to offend your cilantro-hating friends (as much as they may deserve it).

  So there you go, yummy salsa. Nearly all those ingredients are optional, just use as many as you have around, and you’ll end up with a tasty salsa for sure.

Feed on comments to this Post