Salsa

Let me start by saying I have never seen my wife eat that much salsa before, at a restaurant, or out of a jar. I watched her eat this salsa, loving every bite. When I see that, I know I am doing something right. The spice, the flavors, the aromatics. Salsa is something that I have been experimenting with for some time now, as it is so versatile. This “first” batch is worth trying and making your own. Trust me, it’s all good.

Ingredients:

(50 minutes)

• 2 large roma tomatoes, crisscross sliced near the top
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 2 fresh jalapenos
• 1 Guajillo pepper, dry
• 1 Ancho Pepper, dry
• 1 large onion, peeled
• Olive oil
• Cilantro
• Salt
• Pepper

This might sound complicated, but only takes about 50 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375. In a small bowl, add the onion, jalapenos, and garlic, and coat with approximately 4 tbs of olive oil. Place on a baking sheet and roast for nearly 35 minutes.

In the meantime, in a small pot filled with water, add the tomatoes, ancho, and guajillo peppers, and bring to a boil for roughly 10 minutes. The goal with the tomatoes is to get the skin soft enough to peel away. Once the veggies have cooked in the oven, as well as the tomatoes, let them all cool. Once cooled, peel the skin off the tomatoes and toss the skin away, squeeze out the garlic into a bowl, slice and get rid of ‘some’ of the seeds of the jalapenos, and get ready to rumble. Now do not remove the water from the pepper/tomato pan, keep this to add liquid to the salsa for texture.

For the peppers, including the jalapenos, slice them down the middle, get rid of the stem element, and remove some of the seeds, depending on how hot you want your salsa. Now I removed about 90 percent of the seeds for my wife’s sake.

OK. Toss all of this into a food processor, or blender, everything. Toss in a tbs of salt. Add your black pepper, cilantro, and let it blend. Blend to your texture, and add more of the tomato/pepper water to build this texture. You know how you like your salsa.

Now let it cool for a couple of hours, one hour in room temperature, one hour in the refrigerator, and let it go. Eat it with your carnitas, burritos, tacos, nachos, or an omelet. The fun thing is that you can make this your own. Go with it until you find it.