I can use salsa on almost everything, but in this case I made it for a taco bar for a bachelorette party I attended this past weekend. The beauty of a simple salsa is that you can vary all of the ingredients depending on preference and availability. For example, I used a few blemished heirlooms here, but one could certainly use cherry or plum tomatoes or any tomato for that matter, omit the hot peppers, add no garlic. Just an example, but I would say the essential parts are: tomato, citrus, a green leafy herb (cilantro or basil), a garlic and/or onion, some pepper (hot or not). How to determine your variation is up to you! Enjoy this on the back deck as you watch a beautiful late summer sunset.
Ingredients:
Two large, three medium, or one pint tomatoes
Three medium sweet peppers
Two hot peppers
One half medium onion
One clove garlic
Juice from half of a lemon (or lime)
About 5-8 basil leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
Start with a large bowl. Dice the tomatoes to your desired bite size and add them to your bowl. Slice the sweet peppers into slightly smaller chunks. Cut the hot peppers open lengthwise and remove the seeds if you don’t like spice but keep them in of you do! Dice the onion finely and chop the garlic. Chop the basil pretty finely, although you can also slice the leaves thinly. Finally, add the lemon juice and stir it all up gently! Then refrigerate for a half hour or more. Best eaten with others!
This recipe was featured in this week’s edition of Field Notes–a publication distributed to the Ecosystem Farm CSA members.
I find that if you put the cut tomatoes in a colander after slicing them and allowing the tomato water to run off, you can get a much thicker salsa, and then you can make some great dressings (or cocktails) with the tomato water.
Thanks Chap! Great “chef” advice.