.....Gotta Make the Salsa....
Ive been making salsa for a long long time now, and it's taken years for "my" salsa to hit full stride. What's really made the difference is watching everybody else make it. I've worked with a lot of people who love to break out the salsa at pretty much every occasion, so I've had the privilege of spying on a lot of different salsas in progress.
I've seen everything used: bad tomatoes, good tomatoes, canned tomatoes, corn, beans, all the way up to a salsa I witnessed, made almost entirely of habanero chiles.....le'me tell you that was an extraordinary experience; but not one I'll be repeating anytime soon.
Just for a good starting off point I'll talk about plain ol' salsa. I've learned from living in a land that offers so much bounty....and yet so little, that I've got to take great care in choosing my "maters". So much in fact that I usually skip fresh tomatoes all together and opt for the canned variety. Sad huh? You get through one day at a time. But given its still summer and the tomatoes are looking pretty good right now, we'll include them in the party for now.
***Ingredients***
2 each-- Fresh Tomatoes. Large ones. And dont be afraid to grab ripe ones. Really ripe. Like, dont buy them to far in advance, ripe. They'll lend more flavor to the salsa. Chop them up really good, and lift the chopped tomato out of the mess of juice and seeds that have accumulated. More to help lose the seeds than anything.
3/4 cup--Canned crushed tomatoes. This delivers on some extra tomato flavor, that our poor American tomatoes tend to be missing.
1/2 cup-- Tomato juice. You can save what came from your tomatoes, but I reccomend cocktail...or V8. Thats got more outside flavors than some people like, but it works for me.
1 each-- Jalapeno. Chop it up very well. If you or yours are too timid, then you might first cut around the seeds and remove them. Do this carefully, and wash every thing you touch...hell everything you look at while youre dealing with the jalapeno. You will never get a better lesson in cross-contamination than you will when dealing with hot chiles. Wash everything, including and especially your hands.....twice.
1 each--Red Onion. Minced very small.
1 each--Large clove of Garlic. Find something heavy and sturdy. Now smash that clove of garlic like.....well something you would smash. Then continue by chopping it until its suitably fine enough.
1/2 cup-- Cilantro, chopped rough
1/2 cup--Lime juice. Thats maybe 6 limes or so, depending on your extracting abilities. This for me is what really makes the difference. A good salsa should be quite acidic.
1/2 teaspoon-- Ground Cumin. This also really perks the salsa up and adds those expected mexican flavors.
***End Note***
By now I'm kind of lost for words, though. Theres not much more to tell. This salsa is just as simple as that. Matter of fact if you've been putting everything you've prepared so far into the same bowl, then all you've got left to do is stir. Season it with a few big pinches of salt and maybe a shot of olive oil to help carry the flavors. But that's all there is to it. Let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours and it shall marinate all those wonderful flavors together.
