Kitchen Garden Journal

“Toasting” the ingredients either on a grill, hot dry skillet (comal) or under the broiler until the skin chars gives this salsa its special character. Raw, it’s great for dipping tortilla chips; cooked, it becomes the red sauce found in the red or green squeeze bottles at a California burrito bar, great for squirting on just about anything.

Ingredients:
2 lb tomatoes
1 lb smallish onions (extra surface area)
1 large head garlic
3-4 chilies
1 bunch cilantro
lime juice (1-2 limes)
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp vinegar
1 tsp salt

Method:
Toast the ingredients on a hot surface until the skins are blackened: tomatoes and chilies are left whole; onions are quartered; garlic is left unpeeled as individual cloves. After toasting, “sweat” the tomatoes and chilies in a covered bowl or container so the skins loosen. Leave until cool, then peel and discard the skins. Peel the onions and garlic and scrape off any excess char.

Squeeze as much liquid out of the peeled tomatoes as possible. Blend or puree tomatoes, onions, garlic and chilies together in a blender or food processor. Add lime juice, vinegar, sugar and salt. Taste and adjust seasonings so that it tastes good to you. Personally I think the secret to a delicious salsa is the added sugar and vinegar. It really heightens the sweet-sour flavor of the tomatoes. Remember, this is a condiment, after all.

When making a red salsa, it is important to use only red, orange or yellow colored chilies. If you use green chilies, they will turn your salsa an unappealing puce color if blended with red tomatoes. If all you have is green chilies, chop them by hand and add to the rest of the pureed ingredients. Same goes for the cilantro: always hand-chop it rather than blending it. It makes for a much nicer appearance.

At this point the raw salsa is done. If you wish to make cooked salsa, heat a few tablespoons of cooking oil in your tomato sauce pan and add the sauce. Simmer until reduced by about 1/3 and thickened. It becomes a completely different sauce when cooked, turning and orangey red and having the pronounced sweetness of cooked onions.

Keep it for winter:
You can make a huge batch of this and can it, as I’m doing today, raw or cooked. Sterilize your pint jars, bring the salsa to a slight simmer and hot-pack the jars. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. The high acid and sugar content of this salsa makes it pretty foolproof and easy to can.

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• 1 pint cherry tomatoes (or 2 slicing tomatoes)
• 1 sweet onion
• 1 clove garlic
• Hot chilies, to taste
• 1/2 bunch cilantro
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 Tbsp sugar, optional
• 1 Tbsp vinegar, optional

Chop everything to a fine dice and toss with the liquids. Allow to sit for 1/2 hour to meld the flavors. Eat with tortilla chips or quesadillas, enchiladas, burritos, etc.

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