First Salsa Making Experience

**This is a little old, in fact I made the salsas over 6 months ago but never got around to posting the results. Either way, ENJOY!

Okay, so I know what makes a good salsa, but I’ve never made a good salsa. I’ve never made any salsa for that matter. So, armed with our new food processor and several salsa specific cookbooks, I was off on a mission. I spent 2 weeks reading and researching recipes and settled on not one, but 2 recipes to break into the salsa making world. I picked out a variety – the standard pico style hot sauce and a tomatillo based sauce.

    Basic Salsa Recipe:
  • 3 Med Tomatoes, diced. If necessary, drain
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 1/2 med red onion, diced
  • 1/2 tsp crushed dried oregano
  • 2 fresh jalapenos, seeded and diced
  • Salt & Pepper to taste


Steps:
Dice everything up, drain the tomatoes, combine in a bowl and let set for a day or two. The longer you let the flavors blend the better the salsa turns out.

    Tomatillo Salsa
    (Can’t remeber the exact recipe)
  • Tomatillos
  • Red Onion
  • Poblano Chiles
  • Cilantro
  • Garlic


Steps:
Remove the husks from the tomatillos, then toss all the veggies on the grill. Cut the tomatillos in half before adding to the food processor and remove the seeds from the pepper. Run through the food processor, add some lime juice to taste and let set for a few hours.

Verdict: I wasn’t thrilled by the Tomatillo salsa, not nearly enough heat and the basic salsa recipe was a little too tomato-y for my tastes, but the wife loved it. After letting both the salsas sit for a day the flavors really blended together and each of the salsas became that much better. I’ll definately be making some more salsa again soon…

Nick Lindauer: The Original Hot Sauce Blog