You know how I used to cook all the time and tell you guys about what I was making via recipes every Monday? Well, I am still cooking all the things but I seem to forget to take pictures and/or write down the recipe as I go, as of late. I'd love to, one day, recipe test properly and, perhaps, make a career out of feeding people who, like me, can't eat anything (though I'm getting better with food and it is probably the best thing ever).
It is Summer and hot as balls in most of our fine country, shout out to global warming am I right!? (I hate it, I can't lie, give me all the jackets please and thank you). I don't know about you, but I try to avoid turning on the oven this time of year, granted my love of roasted sweet potatoes often trumps my will power to keep the oven off, which I am sure you can also relate to. ANYWAYS, this is not a story about a salad, as you may be thinking. This is also not a story about grilling, which is the other natural assumption for a Summer time 'cooking' piece. This is a (love) story about salsa, tomatillo salsa to be more exact.
Drew and I have been venturing to the Atwater Farmers Market every Sunday. We have our meat people, our greens people, our olive, grape and almond guy (total Italian hustler), our date guy (dates like the fruit not the event you do with another human), and our tomatillo dude (whom also has amazing eggs, avocados, citrus and onions, but the toms are where it is at!).
I got a bag of tomatillos one week with the intention of making salsa for steak, because tomatillo salsa on steak is like peanut butter on jelly. That first bag of toms sat in the fridge, dejected, for a week before I decided to attempt a salsa of some sort. My guilt over wasting food finally got the better of me. This is what happened-
-TOMTOM SALSA-
(v spicy)
What you will need-
1 lb Tomatillos, peeled, rinsed
1 large yellow or sweet onion, peeled and quartered
3-5 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 whole limes juiced (I know, there are three in the picture, but really, two is perfect)
1 jalapeño
3-8 Thai Chilies (use less for less hot salsa)
1 cup cilantro (more like a handful)
1-2 tsp sea salt (usually more toward 1.5, depending on the salt you are using)
1/4 cup water
Place tomatillos, jalapeño, and chilies into a preheated cast iron skillet (a regular pan will work as well). While the toms and chilies are blackening, place your onion, garlic, cilantro, salt, water and lime juice into the pitcher of your blender or vitamix. Be sure to check on the toms and chilies, stirring them so that they blacken but don't burn too much (the thai chilies will need to be pulled out before everything else as they are so small and burn easily). Cut the tops off the chilies and jalapeño, place into the blender with your other ingredients and puree until smooth. Chill for one hour, minimum, so that the salsa can cool throughly.
*This recipe yields roughly three cups of delicious salsa*
If you aren't a fan of spice leave the thai chilies out of the recipe. I have also tried it with other pepper and it works just as well.
Since that first venture into tom salsa land, I have purchased tomatillos at the market every week and made salsa with them as fast as humanly possible. Drew and I eat it on steak on eggs (on steak AND eggs), on nachos, on sweet potatoes (see they can't go away, I love them too much) or salad, you name it, we have put the salsa on it! We also just eat it with chips, because lets be honest, no food was ever more perfect than chips, guac, and a big bowl of salsa!
Stay cool everyone, be good to yourselves, drink lots of water, and eat loads of salsa.
xx
