Homemade Salsa

I was married to this Mexican guy once. His mother was an amazing cook. During the four years we were together I learned a few tips and tricks for cooking authentic Mexican food. One of her specialties was salsa.

Several times I begged her for her salsa recipe but never gave it to me. She did tell me though, that white people call it salsa, if you’re Mexican its chili not salsa.

Her food was so good that I tried to mimic her. I’ll spare you the horror stories. Sometimes it was pretty bad. Sometimes the after smell was pretty bad.

Eventually I came up with a really good salsa recipe. After making it a million times I feel confident enough to say my salsa is every bit as good as my ex-mother-in-law’s was. Here’s how I make up a basic chip and dip style salsa.

Ingredients:
6 Jalapeños
2 Red Dragon Peppers
4 ripe, red, big fat tomatoes
1 onion
1 lime
1 bunch of cilantro
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon ground pepper

Before the instructions a word about peppers –

There were times we would walk in my ex-mother-in-law’s house and wouldn’t be able to breathe because of the extremely spicy air caused from the peppers she hand roasted on the top of the stove.

I tried roasting peppers on the top of my own stove but quickly learned I just couldn’t tolerate how spicy the air would get. It caused an immediate violent coughing reaction in my throat. Instead of roasting peppers I learned another technique that works just as well for making salsa.

Before you start chopping onions and tomatoes fill a small pot with enough water to effectively cover and boil all 8 peppers. Use a toothpick, fork or steak knife to poke holes in the jalapeños and red dragon peppers. Dump the peppers into the water and bring to a boil. Allow the peppers to boil until they are soft. You’ll be able to tell when you’ve boiled the jalapeños enough when they become a dark olive colored green.

While the peppers are boiling chop up your tomatoes, cilantro and onions. If you like your salsa chunky then chop all the ingredients by hand. If you like your salsa juicy then whip out the food processor or blender to chop up your ingredients.

I like my salsa juicy so I usually use my blender to chop everything up. It kind of looks like tomato soup the consistency of apple sauce but that gets remedied right away.

Pull the boiled peppers from the stove but do NOT dump the water. Chop up the peppers and add them to the tomatoes, onions and cilantro. If you used a blender or food processor it will now look like dark green baby poop. Don’t worry though once you taste this salsa you’ll never worry about how it looks again.

Keep in mind while you are chopping up your peppers that if you want the spiciness of the peppers to stay in your salsa you have to keep the seeds. The best way to achieve this is to slide off the stalk end of the pepper (the big fat end) and toss them into the blender. Use a 1/4th cup of water inside your blender to rinse all the seeds and peppers into your salsa mixture.

Add the salt, pepper and garlic salt to the mix.

Now take the leftover water from the peppers and slowly pour a small amount of it into your salsa. The water is the key to how hot your salsa will be because the spice from the peppers is now in the water. The amount of water you add is a personal preference. Obviously the more you add the juicier it will be and the hotter it will be.

Roll your lime around on the counter top to soften it. Rolling it around helps squeeze out the juice so you get the most from your lime. You should always soften limes and lemons before you slice them. Start by squeezing half a lime into the salsa. You don’t want to over do it.

Use a tortilla chip and taste a bite of the salsa. Determine whether or not you need any more salt or lime.

If you really want to add some flair to your salsa add some finely chopped cabbage.

One last thing about this salsa recipe. My salsa is very VERY hot. It tends to melt nose hair when smelled. It is also known to cause those eating it to sweat profusely, have an extremely runny nose, tear up, turn red and drink loads of milk. The greener your salsa is the hotter it is. If you want to try this salsa without as much heat double the amount of tomatoes. Even then you might still end up throwing a couple more in to alleviate the pain.

Happy Eating!