Tomato-Onion Salsa

October 23, 2008

Warning: This salsa does not go well with chips.  It is better served as a sauce.

I’ll admit – I’ve always eaten jarred, store-brand plain salsa. It’s cheap and usually satisfies that salsa craving. One of my first experiences with really good salsa came last year, when my family was given two jars of high-end, homemade looking salsa. They were incredible – I didn’t know salsa could have that much flavor.

Unfortunately, good salsas like that are a bit pricey. When I made burritos last week though, I didn’t want to ruin them with a cheap salsa, and couldn’t afford the good stuff – so I decided to make my own. I settled on Mark Bittman’s recipe for tomato-onion salsa because it had ingredients that I had on hand, and wouldn’t take long to make.

I had half a yellow onion, five small campari tomatoes (+3 later), about a quarter teaspoon of ground cayenne, a small clove of garlic, one to two teaspoons of red wine vinegar (any good vinegar will do), a half teaspoon of salt, a half teaspoon of sugar, and a little under a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice.

The whole recipe is really just preparing your mise en place and blending. I’d also like to point out that I don’t have a food processor or blender – just an immersion blender, so I cut my initial pieces smaller than you’ll need to if you have full size equipment. I peeled the onion half and cut it into small chunks. I also chunked the tomatoes. The recipes calls for them being peeled, cored, and seeded, but I was too lazy to peel them and the core and seeds have all the flavor, so I left them. Ok, maybe I left the core and seeds out of laziness too.

I peeled the garlic clove, and then combined everything except for the lemon juice in a medium mixing bowl.

Next, I just blended with my immersion blender until smooth. New Cook Tip: Tomato skins don’t blend very easily, so be prepared to remove them after blending (mine stayed relatively put together when they got stuck in the immersion blender guard), or leave them if you don’t mind eating the skin. Once my salsa was well blended and the tomato skins mostly removed, I added the lemon juice, stirred, and tasted.

How to describe it? Potent. I know – not the most appealing word for a salsa. It wasn’t spicy, but the onion flavor (is it tart? tangy?) really popped a bit too much. The original recipe (I halved it) called for one medium onion and two full size tomatoes – and I still think this would have been too much onion. I grabbed a few more tomatoes, chopped them, and re-blended.

The extra tomatoes helped settle down the salsa. As a warning though, the flavor is still quite different from most salsas you’ll eat. I found that it tasted great on the burritos, but I wouldn’t want to eat it with chips.

Tips

• The original recipe calls for a whole onion and two full size tomatoes (with everything else doubled as well). I would recommend starting with half an onion and two tomatoes, or have a third tomato on hand if the salsa needs it.
• The immersion blender pureed the salsa into a soupy texture. If you want it chunkier, I’d try a food processor.
• This is a great sauce for other foods (like my burritos), but not my preferred choice for chips.

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a medium onion, cut into large pieces
• 1-2 tomatoes, cut into chunks (with skins removed if possible)
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne (or 1/2 teaspoon paprika)
• 1 small clove of garlic, peeled
• 1-2 tsp. good vinegar
• 1/2 tsp. salt (+to taste)
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1-2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Recipe:

1. Prepare your mise en place and combine everything except the lemon juice in a blender, food processor, or mixing bowl (for an immersion blender).  Blend until it is the texture you want.
2. Add the lemon juice.  Taste and add more lemon juice, salt, or tomatoes if necessary.

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