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Fresh Salsa

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Homemade Fresh Salsa

I fucking hate recipe sites these days. They always have some "story" about how they discovered the recipe in some really old cuisine manual from the 1600s but is really a rehash of the Better Homes recipe book that your grandmother had. Then the smug bastards blog about it for like six paragraphs, forcing you to scroll down until you actually get to the recipe itself and the method to make the food. But goddamnit, I did it myself back in 2002 when I first put this recipe on a blog site.


Lucky for you, there is a Table of Contents up there and you can just click to the link you want for the good stuff.

Description

This salsa isn’t like the crap you get in a jar, and I have been told by people that once they have tried my salsa, they are forever ruined from eating jar salsa. I don’t know if I agree with them, I think that jarred salsa has it’s place…it’s far easier than homemade stuff and I think it is tasty anyways.

The Story

Here we go, this is the gay story part I was talking about and which I hate. Forgive me please. In 2002, nobody did this stupid crap because social media wasn't invented yet.

The recipe goes back hundreds of years and was passed down to me through my grandmother…who whispered the ingredients into my ear as she lay on her deathbed.

Not really, I came up with it myself one day when I was putting together a display of fresh tomatoes.

I mentioned to my co-worker that they looked pretty good and that I thought I was going to buy some. He agreed and told me that he was also going to buy some and then he was going to make salsa. I was young, probably 17 or 18 and I had never heard of such a thing before. Naturally, I was very curious about how to make the stuff so I asked. He gave me a list of items to buy and then told me to chop everything up.

Also, he told me to experiment with peppers to find what kind of temperature I would like. As it turns out, I didn’t like using hot peppers as much as I thought I would. When I added peppers to my salsa, it just never tasted right. Also, the kids wouldn’t eat it, so I took to making the salsa separately and then adding some hot sauce to the mix afterwards according to who would be eating it.

So there I was, standing in front of a tiny cutting board with a sub-standard knife in my hand. I had a pile of vegetables and spices I had no idea what to do with…so I started chopping. And that is what you should do too, so without further ado, here is the list of crap called a "recipe:"

Fresh Salsa

I have drastically changed this recipe. I will put the original here and then put another section describing how I make salsa now.

  • Six whole Roma tomatoes (they may call them plum tomatoes in your area)
  • One full stalk of celery
  • One large sweet onion (I like to use Vidalia onions)
  • One bunch of cilantro (check this by smell, you don’t want to buy flat parsley by mistake)
  • One green bell pepper
  • One yellow bell pepper
  • One orange bell pepper (all of these are just for color, if you want, just use three green bell peppers)
  • One jalapeño pepper
  • Two 16-ounce cans of plain diced tomatoes. Don’t use the doctored type of diced tomatoes; we are going to be spicing the salsa ourselves
  • Six large cloves of garlic
  • The juice of one lemon
  • The juice of one lime
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

Take all of the vegetables and chop them up so that they are about a quarter inch square. You really don’t need to do this that drastically, but I do it for bite size when the salsa is on a tortilla.

Put everything into a big pot. This recipe makes about a 3/4ths of a gallon of salsa, so make sure you have a big enough pot. I use a 6 quart soup pot.

Mince your garlic and add that. Cut your cilantro as fine as you can and add that. Some people don’t like cilantro evident in their food, but I do, so I cut it somewhat large.

Juice the lemon and the lime in a separate bowl so you don't get the seeds get in your salsa. add the cans of diced tomato last. Depending on how juicy the mix is, you may want to drain the diced tomatoes. If you like your salsa with a lot of liquid in it like I do, then just toss both cans in without draining them.

A note about the bell peppers: I put some of their seeds into the salsa because it gives the salsa a bit of “authenticity.” That last part was garbage. Pepper seeds and the membrane inside are inedible and stupid to put into anything, unless you are lazy.

Let this whole mess stand covered on a counter top for about an hour to let the lemon and lime juices “cook” the softer veggies. Salt and pepper everything according to taste and if you like some zip, add about six big dashes of hot sauce to the mix. Stir everything very vigorously every fifteen minutes to keep the “cooking” going. After about an hour, your salsa should be done and ready to enjoy.

I usually just eat it with store bought chips, but you can make your own tortillas if you like. Take a pack of pre-made ones and bake, fry, or put them on the grill. Heck, you can even make your own tortillas with masa flour, but fuck that.

Once everything is done and thoroughly mixed in the pot and it has had time to sit, eat as much of it as you can and then put it away. Since there are a lot of veggies in this that are breaking down due to the acidity of the lemons, limes and tomatoes, the mix will get old fast. Because this is such an expensive mix, you want to get it into the fridge as soon as you are done eating because it will go bad very quickly.

There are several variations on this salsa. some people like to make it with mangos and some people like to add roasted corn to it. It’s okay to do it that way I guess, but I am one of those types that just likes the original. Grandmother would be proud.

Homemade Salsa 2.0

This version is very similar to the above recipe, but after 20 years of making it, I have "tweaked" it by adding and removing some ingredients. The procedure and storage is exactly the same, only the stuff that goes in it has changed.

Fresh Salsa 2.0 Ingredients

  • Six whole Roma tomatoes
  • four full stalks of celery
  • Two large sweet onions. Vidalias if you can get them, but yellow and red onions are fine.
  • One bunch of cilantro
  • One green bell pepper
  • Various mixed chili peppers. Jalapenos, Poblanos, Habaneros, Scotch Bonnets, and any other ones your grocery store might have. This also depends on how hot you want your end product. Remove the membranes and seeds on all of them.
  • Four Gaujillo dried peppers. Reconstitute them by putting them in hot water until they are soft. Peel and remove the seeds.
  • One small can of Chipotle peppers. Use the sauce they come with as well.
  • One 16-ounce can of plain diced tomatoes. Prior to adding them to the pot, mash them a bit.
  • Six large cloves of garlic. Peeled and chopped fine.
  • The juice of one lemon
  • The juice of two limes
  • Salt and pepper to taste. I find that the salt draws quite a bit of liquid out of the vegetables, so keep that in mind when using it outside of its seasoning properties.

Procedure

See above. Cut the vegetables the same way and follow the instructions for the canned items.

Restaurant Style Salsa

The stuff at Don Pablo's
Ro-Tel is optional.

This is similar to that stuff you get at national Mexican food chains in the little bowls.

Ingredients

  • One 28 ounce can of tomato sauce. Use the unseasoned kind.
  • One bunch of cilantro
  • Three cloves of garlic
  • One teaspoon of ground cumin. Add more if you like cumin.
  • Juice of one lemon
  • Juice of one lime
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

Put everything in a blender and pulse until the batch is smooth. If you find yourself wanting this mixture to be a bit more chunky, add one can of Ro-Tel. Cover the bowl and chill for a bit. If you have one of those little carafes that the Mexican restaurants have, put the salsa in those so you can get the authentic cheap southwest cuisine feeling.

Salsa Verde

Tomatillos

This one is a bit different, but I figured if I was sitting here putting all of my salsa recipes together on one page, I should probably add this one on. I don't make this salsa very often.

Verde Ingredients

  • Thirty jalapeno peppers. Try to find larger peppers. Springtime is usually the best time to find larger jalapenos (at least around where I live).
  • Eight tomatillos. Remove the husks and wash thoroughly.
  • Six cloves of garlic. Peeled and minced
  • One bunch of cilantro
  • Juice of two limes
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

Roasted jalapenos

Lightly oil and then fire roast the jalapenos until the pepper's skin is black. You can use a grill, skillet, broiler, or the burners on your stove. Once you get the skin black, place the peppers into a container and cover for at least twenty minutes. This will do two things: allow them to cool and the steam will loosen the skin. Once cooled, remove the peppers and remove as much of the skin that you can. Using a paper towel often helps. Seed the jalapenos and try to get as much of the membrane out as you can. Discard the skin, seeds, and membrane.

Peel the husks off of the tomatillos and then wash them. There is a sticky layer on the outside skin of a tomatillo that needs to be removed. Cut the tomatillos into quarters, keeping the seeds and skin.

Add the roasted jalapenos, tomatillos, garlic, and cilantro to a blender. Pulse until the salsa is smooth. It tends to have a bit of viscosity due to the tomatillos. Once you have the consistency you like, remove from the blender and put the salsa into a bowl. Add the lemon and lime juice and stir in. Salt and pepper to taste.


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mmmmm, Fresh Salsa is a part of a series on Food
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