Salsa, Round II

After speaking with a cook from Mexico, I made a couple changes to my recipe. Maria Teresa claimed that cumin, for all its popularity in the U.S. when preparing Mexican dishes, was rarely used in Mexico. So I dropped the cumin. She also recommended fresh tomatillos. Now, at that point, we are talking about a completely different salsa, but I decided to see what it was like.

The batch I just made with this recipe is cooling, but the initial taste was mediocre at best. I may just be a bit partial to red tomatoes, but we’ll have to wait until it cools to give it a fair judgment. I like the green salsa at Luna de Noche, but I’m not convinced its green on account of tomatillos. Anyway, here’s the recipe. The next batch will use fresh red tomatoes.

Jay’s Chop Chop Salsa

Heat index
Whole jalapeno including seeds and hot chili pepper = very hot
Half of jalapeno without the seeds and mild chili pepper = mildly warm

Ingredients
Important: use fresh ingredients!
2 lbs of small green tomatillos
1 diced large jalapeno pepper
1 diced large green chili pepper
1/3 cup diced yellow onion
1 lime
1 crushed garlic clove
2/3 cup diced cilantro
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar

Directions
Husk and wash the tomatillos. Put and put them in boiling water for 2 or 3 minutes. Put the tomatillo, garlic, salt, and sugar in a food processor. Cut the lime in half and squeeze both halves into the processor. Process thoroughly. Add the jalapeno, chili pepper, onion, and cilantro. Process until the consistency looks appetizing. Place in covered container and chill. A couple of hours of chilling will help the flavors to develop. Serve with El Milagro thin corn tortilla chips.

3 Replies to “Salsa, Round II”

  1. Hey Jay…
    Both Mark (Dishman) and Greg Hewlett, if I’m not mistaken, ROAST either the peppers or both the peppers as well as the tomatillos for their salsas. They also use Cascabel peppers or Poblanos. And it’s been really tasty. Don’t know if you want opinions, but I thought I would add mine (hee hee). Please feel free to delete this comment! 🙂

  2. Hi, I just found your website while trying to find the recipe for the Luna de Noche salsa. I used to have a mini calender that the restaurant put out that had the recipe in it, and I lost it. Just to let you know though, there are no tomatillos in it. It is green because of the cilantro. Before I lost the recipe I made it once and it took about 4 bunches of cilantro. If I ever find I’ll let you know!

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