Homemade Salsa
I started making my own salsa recently. It’s so good — I’ll never buy ready-made salsa again. We don’t like spicy things, so if this salsa seems bland to you, add some hot peppers or something :)
You need:
- Fresh cilantro
- fresh ripe tomatoes
- an onion (you only need a little bit)
- a lime or a lemon
- dash of salt
Mince up a bit of onion, very fine. Separate the leaves and tender upper stems of cilantro from the tough bottom stems (throw the bottom stems out). Chop coarsely. Chop a bunch of tomatoes. Mix all this together in a bowl or an empty cottage cheese container or something. Add a good squeeze of lime or lemon, and salt to taste. If it needs more of something, add more of something :) So good, so good.  I keep a container of this salsa in the fridge at all times.
Category: Blog, Recipes 2 comments »
January 27th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Yum! Just like my grandmother made, (she’s from Mexico). Except of course, for the hot pepper. She had one or two diced Japaleno peppers or 3 or so Chile Serrano.
And sometimes my grand aunts, (grandmother’s sisters), would just blend the whole thing in a blender, leaving it as lumpy as desired.
Oh, and a clove of garlic, that can be added to the blended verision if you like, and also to the chopped up version. I don’t really like to add it though. different opinions amongst the cooks in my family, but I don’t really like garlic chunks.
If you blend your salsa in the blender, you can use the sauce for making my grandmother’s eggs, (I call them Huevo’s Rancheros, but I don’t think they are…that’s just what I call them for lack of a better name).
She gets some eggs, beats them till smooth with a fork, adds water to them, a lot of water, sorta thins the eggs out, (well not too much water either…sorry I just do this by eye, maybe 1/4 cup to 1/3 water for three or four eggs? I found out recently it helps make the eggs tender. All the while I figured it just stretched the eggs out. The water is important though – gives the right texture to the cooked eggs.)
Then, you get a large skillet, 12 or 10 inches I suppose. Or an eight inch one. You decide. Heat it up, and pour in the egg till it coats the bottom and it’s about as thick as a tortilla. When the top of the egg is almost cooked fold the egg in half, then in quarters, and gently remove from the pan, and do the next batch, and so forth. About three or four of them are made, (adjust your eggs according to how many you need).
To the skilled add a small can of tomato sauce, some cayanne pepper, (or whatever to heat it up – spicy heat that is), and a squeeze of lime (either 1/2 or the whole thing, depending on how much hot spice you put in it – it helps cut the heat of the spice – and salt, and pepper.
If you use the blended salsa you made, that should be good enough, with no need for more ingredients. You don’t need to put cilantro in the eggs if you are just using a small can of tomato sauce. I add about 1/2 a can of water to the tomato sauce in the skillet using the tomato sauce can. You can adjust it as you like.
Cook and heat it well till the sauce has thickened. Then very gently slip in the folded eggs and heat the eggs through and through in the tomato sauce. You should have just enough sauce to barely cover the eggs. If the eggs were a bit undercooked when you folded them up, that’s okay, this step wil finish cooking them through.
Serve with warm corn tortillas, if you like, (I do). I have served this for lots of american friends, and they just love my grandmother’s eggs.
YUMMMMY!
Evelina :)
January 27th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
That’s my kind of recipe — chatty and flexible :) Thanks!